by Richard Chang

How good a shooter are you? You know how good you are. You can't often fool yourself; typically you know exactly what your skillset entails. We often tell others of our skills in a salesmanlike manner but in reality there are often shots we don't like to make, sometimes technically, somtimes we just don't have a feel for the type of shot called for. There are holes in our understanding of photography that we'd like to patch, if only for problem solving. In actuality, these problematic issues are fundamental to the whole of our photo skills, for without these issues, we'd be better off. Could it be that a little introspection is in order? To use a famous comedienne's line, Can we talk?

To evaluate your skills objectively, what questions are to be asked? What determines your photo skills? Is it the quality of the concept brought to you by your clients? Indeed, are you the shooter that does only what you're told to do? What contribution do you make to the images that you shoot? If you shoot only for money, what would you shoot if you were shooting for yourself, if you weren't shooting for money? Perhaps a better question is, do you shoot for you? Do you still enjoy the photographic process? Do you shoot your own ideas and share the images with others? Do you appreciate doing the little things that add up to the obvious craft of your images?

Are you a photographer who knows how to take a picture but doesn't really know how photography works? Do you know how easily your photographs transition onto the final target? Have you asked the people downstream of your process, if your images could be better crafted so that they render better? Have these people told you of the merits of what you do? How about attributes within your images that could be better handled than what you're delivering to them? Are your images consistent in their style, will the same adjustments by the pre-press people work most of the time? Are your images a breeze or a nightmare? What do you know of what happens to your images?

The assumption of total creative control for an image assumes some risk. Can you handle the creative process totally on your own? Would you shoot outdoors in uncontrolled light? Can you shoot in uncontrolled light? Do you shoot indoors where you shoot only what you light? Is your notion of creativity one where the creative process takes place after the capture, in Photoshop? The evaluation of your skills can often be made most accurately when you are the sole contributor to your creative processes. It can be quite therapeutic and illuminating, this going it alone.

Can you organize the capture of a compelling reflectance in extraordinary light? Can you make extraordinary light if you don't see it? Are you visually literate? Do you understand transition of tone? Are these difficult questions to ask of yourself? Are these questions difficult because the answers are no? Fear not, the information can be learned. Skills can be sharpened. Fear instead, the notion that of all the images you'll make within your lifetime, you've already made the best image you'll ever make. Fear that you've put yourself out to pasture, that you're in a self imposed waiting room, waiting for someone to bring you a creative project you can attach your name to. Of course it doesn't have to be this way. You could tighten your belt, set your jaw, and start shooting for yourself. This process strengthens us and gives us experience, experience where we're making all the decisions.

The creative process is extraordinary because it's a process that involves inertia. The more you do it the better you get. The more you do it the more often you derive the better result. This shooting for ourselves, this assumption of risk, makes us players. Play the game and win or lose, you participate at the highest level you aspire to, just lke the game of life. Playing is interesting. This opportunity we have to do great things diminishes a day at a time. How many days will you have to assume this ultimate creative risk? How many days will you have to shoot and render, and share your vision? That is for you to decide. In the balance hangs the health and growth of your photographic skills. Since no one is going to do it for you, will you do it for yourself? If you undetatke this personal photographic commission, how will you proceed, what is the first step? Will you ask questions that will enable you to learn complex photographic concepts? Will you undertake a workshop or seminar? Will you make an effort on your own behalf? Ask yourself these questions and be stronger because you are honest with yourself when you answer them. Use the answers to plot your success, in the direction that you decide you need to go. After all, it's your skillset.