Missional Photography Intensive #2

As we delved into Week #2 of the Missional Photography: More than Pictures intensive course at RHU, we tackled the topic of exposure. I was so impressed with Jessica Claire as she grappled with this rather huge subject and tried to condense it into roughly 90 minutes. Whew!

She used several of her own images to illustrate her points and I found myself realizing that I must prefer over-exposed images. Most of the stuff that is "properly exposed" looks dark to my eyes. But that's part of why I'm taking this course! - to see with someone else's eyes and really dive into my own photography and what it is (and isn't) accomplishing.

Here's Jess teaching (with a great shot of hers from Jamaica - does she take a bad one?) and Mike shooting her from the shadows...




This course is really challenging me in ways I didn't expect. I've learned a couple of things about myself: one of them being that I tend to judge the value of my work by comparing it to the work of others. Aka, my work is "bad" because someone else's work is "good". That makes me kind of lame. The other thing I learned is that I'm very reliant on my longest lenses. This is good in some situations, and even appropriate sometimes, but not always. This week, Dane challenged us to use only our shorter lenses (85mm and below I believe) and really work hard to immerse (special word of the night ;-p) ourselves in what we're shooting. And I'm a wee bit of a coward.




I want to honor the dignity of the people I'm shooting and their story that I'm am responsible for telling, so I really want to lean into this. But man it's hard! Do any of you struggle with this? Does it terrify you even a little bit to approach a total stranger (with or without a camera)? If it does, PLEASE share with me how you deal with it! I'd love pointers. :-)

Look at how laid back Mike is when he shoots! LOL - even his feet are coming out of his shoes. Also, I want that lens (*drools*)




I had some requests to post the assignments for those of you who haven't been able to get to the workshop (btw, you are still welcome to jump in even for the last two weeks if you're able!), so here they are...

We have to continue to shoot 100 photos a day and are assignment this week is much like last week (bringing in a 8x10 print of our best storytelling shot), but this time, it should reflect our conversation on exposure and we can't use long lenses. I'll post my choice or let you vote on the options.

Fab!