Jane Grows Garden Rooms

How did a writing platform help me take better photographs?

When I began writing on Medium it felt like a wonderful creative release. I’d written my whole life and I’d blogged for a couple of years but the opportunities provided by this platform appeared very exciting indeed. Unfortunately that enthusiasm waned but many of the skills I learned by regularly publishing on this platform remained. At the top of that list is photography.

But it’s a writing platform isn’t it?

I can’t remember how I discovered it but one day I found the Photo a Day challenge. I was thrilled! A way to combine two loves in one! The Photo a Day challenge was just that. Every week I began to find my best photo from each day and wrote about them. Of course to have a best photo each day I had to take at least one photo every day.

Every day I when I sat in my backyard drinking coffee or an afternoon drink my camera sat faithfully beside me. When I had time I would take my camera for a walk. If, for some reason of busy-ness, I didn’t get a camera shot I would at least make sure I took a photo with my phone.

How lucky we are these days to have a camera in our pockets!

Over the years I participated in that challenge my photography improved significantly. After I moved house and got busier I lost the habit but still took photos and entered competitions and enjoyed some success.

This year when I sat down to select shots for our local show which I enter every year and that I have “placed” in every year I was dismayed by the quality of my shots. They weren’t bad but they weren’t getting better. I was not getting the camera out as often and it showed!

The week after the show I had a good look at my photography, which these days is mostly macro shots with a peppering of wildlife and botanical, and realised that I needed to reinstate my commitment of at least one photo every day. In addition, I needed to make it exciting again by trying new things.

Now, I’m back to getting the camera out most days and I have been attempting to “stack”. This is where you take a shot with different focal points and stack them together. For example, if you photograph a spider it is usually difficult (if not impossible) to get the entire shot in sharp focus. By stacking you can blend all the shots so that the whole organism is in focus.

I have a long way to go!

That is not surprising. What is surprising is that my wellbeing has improved! I am more motivated to draw and write. Creativity begets creativitiy.

So thank you to all those involved in the Photo a Day challenge for improving my photography and my wellbeing! Thank you for giving me a strategy to bring joy and nurture my creativity!

Should I start blogging my photo a day here? Comment if you think I should!

PS. I’ve been concentrating on YouTube rather than Medium lately. I tried a Photo a Day video but it’s performed rather poorly in terms of click throughs. Feel free to check it out!