Halfway Harry and Harriet

Tales from the life of an almost-photographer.

Are you a casual snap-shooter? Well, let’s define casual...are you a one-film-a-year shooter whose camera lives in a drawer with plastic bags and bits of string? The Photographic Relative who haunts family parties? The person with a picture of two bridges and four beaches on the holiday memory card? Or the person whose card is full and whose battery is empty?

Don't be afraid to admit it. We have all had those times. Inspiration has stared us in the face and then looked away…

Yet the opportunity to become a good artist or journalist is always there. Things happen around us constantly that cry out for photography. We just need to keep the darned thing charged and take the pictures as fast as we can.

That's half way - the other half is what we do with the result. If all we ever do is pile up images on a phone or in a memory card we risk losing them should the card fail or the phone be lost. If all we ever do is stop people at parties to flip through our phone ( Where is that picture of Fiji. I knew I took one... ) we risk alienating everyone.

We need to make pictures for the wall. We need to make pictures for books. We need to make pictures for web sites. Of course we'll risk people criticising them, but they'd do that anyway. At least with a positive display we can have some pride. And every time we complete a finished print we  will be that much better at the art.

Don't be a Half-Way:

1. Go to a good pro lab and have them print your best work. They can print big and frame it for you. And they are masters of decor.
2. Make a photo book. There are any number of companies that do it on-line, and they do it well. Their templates are designed to cope with your level of skill.
3. Make a website or a weblog. Here you may need help, if it is to be a commercial venture. There are infinite variables to some of graphics that you’ll need - and don’t we know it down ’t mill…but some of the very simple weblog templates will let you show and tell every day. Depending upon what you write, people will either stop you in the street or chase you up it.
4. Join a photo society or club and enter their contests. Competition may not be your driving force, but there is no denying that a little praise goes a long way.
5. Get a web-friend and exchange images with them. How circumspect you are in meeting someone on-line is up to you, but just as pen-pals could be a healthy and intellectual pursuit in the old days ( Before the price of stamps rivalled the price of lunch… ) and if you are genuine, someone else out there is too.
6. Donate images to good causes - you choose which ones you define as good.
7. Organise your own exhibitions in libraries, clubs, and residences. If you learn how to print at home ( with equipment and supplies from Camera Electronic, naturally…) you can learn framing and display from clubs and societies. You need be neither modest nor arrogant about your own work - just present it for limited periods to people who have not seen it before, then retrieve it and show more.

You’ll know you have achieved the right balance in life when you forget to do the grocery shopping but have made sure you have enough ink and paper for the next exhibition. In a pinch you can print yourself a picture of dinner.