How to Keep a Commonplace Book (as a photographer)
If you want to get better at photography, art, or anything creative, keeping a commonplace book is one of the most important things you can do. Like me, you may have had a lot of “floating journals” where you’d have something to write in but they weren’t exactly dedicated places for learning, developing ideas, and compiling knowledge. That’s what a commonplace book is.
I’ve been consistently keeping commonplace books for more than a year now and use it for more than just photography, but also life in general. Now there are no rules to keeping a commonplace book. You can have one specifically for the craft, or like me, can have one dedicated towards your path in life. It’s up to you.
But today I’m going to share with you different ways to keep a commonplace book, from my current perspective as a photographer.
Compile Knowledge Specific to You - a Personal Textbook
Imagine you had a textbook that was perfectly curated towards your life, your struggles, the things you needed to learn, and the obstacles you had to overcome. That’s what I like to think of a commonplace book as. A commonplace book acts as a storage bin of knowledge and information that you accumulate in your journey. It has everything you’re interested in and everything you’ve learned. Which can mean things from podcasts, books, or even thoughts you might have on a walk. It’s like having a personal textbook.
A more specific example of this would be something like color grading. Say I want to bring out the vibrancy and color of this sunset without breaking the image apart. I can play around with the sliders and figure out how to do it as I edit dozens of photos. After doing so, I can also write what I’ve learned and maybe alternative methods of doing the same thing into my commonplace book. This saves the knowledge for later as a reference. I can do this for different styles and versions of editing as I learn and try different things. I’d recommend to write down little nuances which are specific to you that you wont find in YouTube tutorials or posts online.
Another example is to note down something interesting someone else did in their photography that you might want to try and apply in the future. Maybe you came across an Ansel Adams photo and want to integrate elements of his black and white tones or even the way he composes landscapes to your photography. Simply noting that down will make it more likely for you to remember and apply that technique the next time you have the chance.
If you need a key tip on what to keep in your commonplace book, start by asking this question: “Is this useful?”
Anything useful goes in, anything useless gets ignored.
What you write will be what’s useful for you specifically, because what’s useful for you will be different from what’s useful for others. We all have different strengths, weaknesses, and challenges in life.
So you determine what is useful. You determine what is worth writing down.
Page after page, you’ll begin to build your own personal textbook. And as you do so, your photography will improve, your knowledge will accumulate, and you’ll understand yourself as a photographer more.
Learn What Kind of Photographer You Are
As you progress in photography, it’s important to understand what you like, what you don’t like, and how you do things. And so one of the things to write in your commonplace book are notes about your own creative process.
Some simple questions you can ask are:
“Do I like walking around nature capturing epic landscapes or do I enjoy talking to people and setting up portrait shots?”
“What is it about this lens or focal length that I like or don’t like?”
As we write, we begin to accumulate documentation of what we’ve learned and what we’re interested in. This is a good way to be honest with ourselves and you may begin noticing patterns in your own photography. This can help point the next step in your journey, whether it be picking up another lens or deciding to build a photobook.
I’ve noticed this myself when writing in my own commonplace book. For a long time my favorite focal length was the 23mm (35eq), and it still is, but as I find myself taking more and more viewpoint photos I’ve notice myself looking into more telephoto lenses (90mm, 55-200mm, etc) to capture things that are further away.
Similarly, when I release prints, sometimes it’s purely out of my own interest and not necessarily something others would buy or put on their walls. There’s a print called “Lunar Purple” for example which I edited to have this nice gradient purple tint which I thought made sense in the edit. It’s not traditional photography and wouldn’t work on different images because an insane purple color cast just wouldn’t make sense. But I allowed myself to follow my instincts and really think about what would bring out what I was feeling into this photo. And surprisingly, many people actually liked this one and I’ve sold quite a few since. Because of things like this, I try to keep following and trusting my intuition even if it sometimes leads me down a rocky path. Its an important part of my creative process that I now understand.
You can apply this to your photography as well. When you go out and take photos, pay attention to what you do and why you do it. What did you notice about this place that stood out to you? Is there a better way you can frame this that will create a better end result? Try and keep the possibilities open: experiment, try new things, don’t box yourself in. Note what worked and didn’t work and continue to refine and polish your photography as you go.
“Lunar Purple”
Get to the Truth of Things
Every now and then I’ll reread my old commonplace books and recopy some useful notes or information into the new ones. This is because I write a lot of stuff down. And some stuff just isn’t relevant later. I like to see what stands out to me 6 months or even a year later. If something keep popping up and I find myself rewriting the same things over and over again, that’s how I know it’s important.
This can be anything from problems I’m still having or just helpful reminders that I’ve forgotten. This process allows me to keep track of what’s actually useful.
For example, one of the things I personally notice that repeats itself is to not take myself so seriously. You could probably tell in my videos and I mention it sometimes because photography is something I’m fairly “passionate” about. And so I’ll constantly have to remind myself to relax and not take things so seriously, because it’s just photography. And then of course I’ll still put the work, effort, and time in, but it’s not life or death. Even just reminding myself of that phrase allows me to loosen my grip on my camera a bit. Which, not everyone has that problem. Most people are pretty chill about it. But that’s just an example of something specific to me that keeps popping up.
So if you find yourself writing something over and over again, start circling, highlighting, starring it. Chances are, those things that keep coming back are problems or quirks that are specific to you, your journey, and your struggles. If you can note those things down, you can keep the solution in your back pocket. Then when problems come up, you’ve got it.
See Our Own Progress
It’s often in life we forget how far we’ve come and what we’ve learned. And when I go through and reread my own commonplace books, I get a lot of perspective. I can see and feel how naive I was even just a few months ago, and the problems I was dealing with back then seem so silly now.
So commonplace books can be a great way to remind yourself you’re making progress. Progress takes time and you really don’t feel it in the present but it’s important to be patient and stay the course. If you stick to the day to day, one year from now you’ll realize you’ve made leaps and bounds in your photography.
And your progression can encourage you to keep going. When you look at how far you’ve come, you’ll begin to see how far you can go. It’s big picture stuff, and reminding yourself that it all adds up, day by day, will take us to far places in this endless journey.
That’s all from me today. Thanks for reading.
