We Sell Ideas

It's a shop. We sell things. You bring money, you leave it here, you go home with something. Sometimes you go home with a camera, sometimes you go home with a lens. Sometimes you go home with the water cooler or one of the shop assistants wrapped up in brown paper. Those are special days... But sometimes you go home with ideas. We're not going to pretend that they are always good ideas. We're old enough to have got past that, and so are you. But they are ideas that will drive you onwards to do more in photography. If we're both lucky they will bring you money and praise...and then you can bring some of the money into the shop and leave it for your next set of ideas. You can keep the praise for your own use. The best way to start this cycle is to come into the shop and up to the counter. Fix one of the staff members with a steady eye, identify yourself, and tell them what you'd like to do. There's your first challenge; what DO you want to do? Do you know? Do you know why? Never mind knowing how - we can supply that. Just tell us what and let us work on that. By all means add as much detail as you feel you need to...thee where and when...but if we clutch our head and reel, slow down. Too much input can overload the best thinking machine. And one phenomenon will help - as you tell us what the task is to be, you'll find it becomes clearer in your own mind. The staff will think in terms of equipment - it is a shop, after all. But as they are all experienced photographers, they will also be running a parallel stream of thought - not dealing merely with the black boxes, but the way those boxes interact with your scene. Every digital manufacturer has provided many ways that something can be done, and it might take a while to mentally explore all the possibilities. If the staff member has three or four alternatives to suggest, listen to them all. Note: sometimes different staff members have different ideas about how to do something. They might all be valid - hopefully you and they can come to some sort of consensus about it all in the end. Please don't try to play one staff member off against another one. It will only slow down the whole process. Is there another way to do this? Yes, but you have to be prepared to sit and listen - listen and think. Shoot Photography Workshops - the business in the next building over from the Stirling Street store - has a regular series of workshops, seminars, gear expositions, classes, etc for all levels of photography. You can get basic, you can get advanced, you can get nuts and bolts and you can get esoterics...just as you feel you need them. I attended several classes on different subjects and I feel I always came away better equipped for the general tasks than when I went in. The best Shoot classes sometimes don't even send you out with a new technique or piece of equipment - they send you out with a new idea to explore. They have reset your mind. We all need new from time to time, and this is a place where it can be had for a bargain.