Never Underestimate The Value Of Access
We might wish we had access to other locations and opportunities to express our creativity. But, maybe we already have access to everything we need.
A few weeks back I was chatting with a friend, a ski instructor, who also enjoys taking photos. The conversation was like so many others I’ve had with amateur photographers in recent years – I wanted to see some of her photos and she wanted to go through some well rehearsed excuses about her craft, from lack of confidence using a dSLR camera to the limited amount of time she had to make photographs.
But, looking at a two page spread of one of her photos that was printed in a ski magazine, all those excuses quickly melted away like snow off the trees on a spring day.
The photo was a contextual portrait of a skier powering down a steep slope, waist deep in powder snow, glorious blue skies framing the valley below. Sure, I could pick out a few technical issues with the photo but there was one simple truth I couldn’t avoid.
I was never going to take that photo.
What we can do with a camera is, in many ways, not as important as being in place to make an amazing photograph. Sure, if you have two photographers working side by side the more technically competent one might have an edge. But, my friend was the only photographer on the mountain that morning and the sheer difficulty of just getting to that spot makes it hard for many photographers to follow in her ski tracks.
Too often we underestimate the value of access. We compare our technical abilities (or limitations) with the people we admire. But, we forget to place value on the access we have available to us. What may feel mundane, or everyday, could be exotic, unique or hard to reach for others.
Kids, with their expressive nature and curiosity-driven way of engaging with the world, not only make amazing subjects for photography, they also provide a rich source of surprise for writers, artists and designers. But, unless you have kids of your own, access is an issue. In most countries you can’t just walk onto a playground and start photographing kids!
It’s worth pausing to reflect on this. Our pets, our workplace, our favourite cafe, our elderly relatives, our daily commute. All these feel so familiar and yet it’s easy to forget how much the details of each of them are really quite specific and unique to the life we live. The moment we take a good look at any them we actually have access to a distinctive original story we might share.
Think about the street where you live. However mundane and ordinary it might feel to you, I guarantee it is radically different, alien in fact, to the small backstreet I live on in Tokyo. Show me your street and you are showing me a whole different world!
