This article is about some important insight I gained about this blog and my photographic development. But before I come to that I have to go back in time.
My first post on this blog was back in 2010 and it was titled “Into the unknown…“. In that post I announced the start of my photography blog – this blog – but also expressed, that I was not too sure about whether I would continue this thing. Looking back it is a pretty odd move to start something new and immediately express your doubts, but hey – it’s wonderful I proved myself wrong on this issue.
Nearly six years have passed and I have written 315 entries so far, that’s roughly one entry per week. If you followed this blog or if you browse older articles you will notice that I started with posts about photo gear. I’ve had some trouble with my D800 and CLS, I reviewed flashes, wireless remote triggers and suitcases and spread my thoughts about what the next camera from Nikon would be like.
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- At this angle the contents of the case can be conveniently accessed and the bag of the case won’t get dirty
Entries about photography itself (exhibiting my work) were rare. I was too fixated on gear. I was doing a bit of macro here, portrait photography there, travel photography …. but there was not a central, recurrent theme in my photography.
Because I had not found it yet.
A long time I joked about it calling myself an “occasional photographer” – “I shoot on any occasion”. But that was more or less a camouflage to hide that I had not found the one genre I would want to specialise in yet. The odd thing is, I _knew_ that if you want to be a good photographer, you must specialise in something. You can’t be great in every genre.
But you don’t find your genre by pointing a finger and yelling “there you are!”. It has something that has to find you (cheesynessalert no. 1).
The attentive reader might have noticed (warning, irony!) that I took up motorcycle photography in the last year. That had to do with getting a motorcycle by myself, which opened a new world for me. I love the beauty of that technology, the elegance of the bikes and the undescribable feeling of freedom you have while riding them (cheesynessalert no. 2, but only expressing what I feel).
And suddenly I had an epiphany. Motorcycle photography is my genre. It sounds obvious, because, well, that’s what I’ve been doing excessively in the past twelve months, but the actual insight, that this is the thing I want to do from now on, was not there. Until then.
So I came to the conclusion that motorcycle photography is what I want to specialise in. It feels right, I feel the enthusiasm and hunger to do more. Positive feedback about the work I have done so far also played a big part. If you love what you do, you’ll do a great job.
To close the circle to what I wrote at the beginning of this article – I don’t care about photo gear that much any more. I don’t read the blogs or magazines and I only noticed by “accident” that Nikon released the D500 and the D5. My thoughts now revolve about the next shooting rather than the next camera. I have finally come to a point where I put the actual photography in the center of my attention. How much time did I waste rambling on about gear and not taking photos…
Cheesynessalert no. 3 ! Your gear is just a tool. It is so obvious and I have read and heard that exact phrase hundred times. But sometimes things that should be common sense must be experienced before they can be understood.
Having found my photographic genre does not mean, that I will abandon all other activities. I will do other projects as well and blog about the results. But the main focus (no pun intended) will be on motorcycle photography.
Thanks for being a part of this journey, thanks for reading !
