Rix Mascarenhas
Weekend without doing anything like the Masterclass with Annie Leibovitz.
It is known that with practice comes perfection, so practicing photography is a must for anyone who wants to be a serious photographer.
But even if you have years of experience there will always be something that you don’t know, and that you don’t fully understand how it works, so studying is necessary.
Last weekend I came across the opportunity to study some more, opportunities that when they depend on money are few so we can’t let it go. Strolling through the internet I ended up finding a course in one of my favorite photographs,
Annie Leibovitz , and I thought it might be time to study some more.
I registered on the site, paid for the registration and went straight to the session where I could watch the videos.
The beginning
With a very suggestive name, ANNIE LEIBOVITZ TEACHES PHOTOGRAPHY, I thought she would talk about a lot of related things about photography, and it wasn’t like that .
At the beginning of the content you are faced with a person extremely passionate about what he does and everything involved in this aspect.
This is something that I don’t usually see nowadays in most professionals, regardless of the area, most of them are much more connected in numbers of followers or amount of money that is entering the cashier.
And this is everything you will not see in this “course” by Annie, because at no time will she quote the word money and followers.
The first chapter is very cool, you are faced with a person talking about him and his experiences in the field where you want to earn a living then you realize something, I need to study more.
When I say I need to study more, I’m not talking about how important it is to know how to use your camera or how important it is to understand about more complex subjects such as lighting for example.
When I talk about study, I say this in the sense, particularly for me, I need to observe more, watch more, analyze more.
Not only the things that are around me, but also things that I have done in the past and create a self-critical analysis of my work.
The middle
Okay, I kept watching what she had to say and the more I watched it, but I found two things:
- She’s not talking about how to do this or that
- I want to see what happens next.
These two things stayed in my head for some time, after all I have seen a lot of video lessons where the teacher wants to give you everything chewed so you don’t have to work.
Which is definitely not the case for this Annie Master Class.
The more I saw what she had to say the less I was hooked on things like which camera or lens is best for this or which is the maximum ISO for a given camera.
And more and more it was pulled to one side of the photograph that I was neglecting, the observation.
And then the business started pulling me by the hair, why the hell did I not see this before, here before half of the content of the class I already had some of my answers.
Annie’s work always caught my attention and I was always extremely curious to know how she dealt with certain things and situations, my questions were even somewhat technical.
And all of these questions have been answered, it doesn’t look like I expected, but they have been answered.
Final
And there I was 2 hours sitting in front of the computer screen and with about 2 more hours to come, for an anxious person like me this was already a victory in a way.
Thinking about what else she would have to say to me, I remained firm and strong watching what I now call a documentary about photography and not just a video lesson. In a way it was like meeting Gandalf and all his wisdom, and at the same time he told me that I have to find my way.
For many this could seem like an absurd anticlimax, but it all depends on how you absorb what they are telling you.
And at the end of the marathon I ended up realizing that I spent more than 3 hours listening to photography, talking about photography, because at each stop I would comment with my wife about what I was seeing, and doing exactly what I was missing, observing.
Perhaps the most difficult thing in any learning process will be to identify your own difficulties and to know how to control them. That is why studying is always necessary.
I have always been connected to some kind of art during my life and during all my time in the most varied subjects I always had that urge to be good at what I was doing right away.
And finally after 3 decades in mine I understand that being good at something comes with training, observation and breaking your bribes. And definitely this material that Annie put online, so that she wants to see and can afford it, was very worthwhile for this type of self-knowledge.
And now?
The conclusion of the story is:
Don’t get stuck in your world and when you know something, someone out there will always have something new to show you.
It is always worth studying, and when I talk about visual arts almost everything is study material. Drawings, films, books, photos, paintings. All of this is worth noting.
For those who want to have the experience of being exposed to the thoughts of a great photographer, it is worth the investment in Annie’s course, which you will find here .
And as always anyone who has any suggestions just leave it there in the comments.
