How to Journal (as a photographer)
If I could pick one thing that has allowed me to not only improve in photography but also understand myself better as a photographer, it would be journaling.
Journaling is something I do every day. Many people think that journaling is just for life in general but I’ve found it very helpful to journal about photography specifically. And it’s something I’d recommend for anyone doing anything creative.
Journaling can be a great way for us to understand our thoughts, what we are trying to express, and where we are trying to go. In many ways, a journal is our sanctuary - where we can let loose and free our mind of the troubles of the world. Today, I’ll share with you guys a few helpful ways I like to journal and how you can apply it to your life.
Write What You Feel
The most common use of a journal is to write down our feelings. Feelings are often what guide and orient our lives and its important to write them down such a way that we understand them and can be honest with ourselves.
In photography it’s important to understand what we are doing and why we are doing it. For example, photography might just be a casual thing for you. You’ll say, “oh I just take pictures for fun”. On the other hand, photography might be a more serious thing. You have something you want to accomplish, goals of some sort.
There are questions I ask myself that help me create without fear and without worry of others judging my work. For me, photography is an expression of me as a person. I’m going through life doing my thing and whatever stage of life I’m in, you can see that reflected in my photos. For example, the zine I’m working on, “The Sinking Sun”, is in part, about the fleeting moments of life. The time we have here seem and feel long right now but are gone in an instant. And it’s something I try to remind myself that tomorrow is not guaranteed, and these are the golden years. And I think you can see that clearly reflected in these images.
So I think these questions are meaningful to ask yourself if you’re a photographer, or really someone doing anything creative.
How do I feel about this? Is this what I am trying to express? What do I actually want to express? Is this something I’m excited and motivated to work on, or is it just another bs project?
Write Your Experiences
Experiences are important to write down because we forget things quickly. When going on photoshoots or creating something new, its important to write down that experience to better understand your own creative process - what you were thinking when you made that, how you felt when you made that, what you applied, and what you didn’t. If we understand our own creative process, we can make it easier to get to that state - where we are making our best work. We can reinvent our own creative process in a sense. We might even discover that something we did made the photo better without us even realizing it.
One thing I’ve learned about my own creative process is that I like to go with the flow. I don’t like to plan too much when it comes to taking photos, rather I enjoy being in the moment and seeing what I can capture then. And the type of photos I take will come from the type of life I’m living. For example, I no longer go out of my way to go to downtown areas to try to take street style photos. Rather I’ll take street style photos if I find myself in those situations - like when I’m traveling or something. But unless I want to go to those places normally, I wont. And so many of my photoshoots are actually just me on walks during golden hour and that’s the style that shows in my current photos. And I actually think my photos are better this way, because I’m not trying to force anything. I adapt and take pictures based on the environment around me. And that creates for beautiful opportunities. That’s photography, as currently understand it.
So you can apply this to your own work by asking yourself: how do I create things? What are the things I do when I am making my best work? And how can I recreate that? For me, understanding my own natural creative process is what helped me build around that as opposed to conforming my creative process to rules others have made up.
Write Where You Are
If art is your career it can be a scary and long road. This is why it’s important to write where you are in our photography journey. Many times we’ll put ourselves in a bad place by comparing ourselves to other artists further down the road. This makes us think we should be better or more accomplished than we actually are. And that sucks. Because it’s just us beating ourselves up. But I think by writing this stuff down, we can actually give ourselves peace by telling ourselves we are exactly where we should be.
For example while building this zine I get caught up often in whether or not what I’m doing is worth it. I feel like oh no one’s gonna see it, its not gonna be good anyways, its just sunsets, who cares. But I also know that this is something I want to make and I would make it regardless, even if no one saw it. And I also want to make many more photobooks in the future. Meaning that this is not the end all be all, but an important first step. If that’s the case then it doesn’t even matter whether its good or not. I’m making it as best as I can currently can with the skill level I have and that’s the point.
You can apply this to your own life as well. If you have a personal project you’re working on and you want to do something that wont necessarily get you money or whatever, it’s still worth pursuing because it’s what you want to create. That’s art after all.
And so what I think journaling as a photographer helps us do is to be own our counselor. As fun as art can be, there are challenging aspects to it. And journaling for me, has allowed me to overcome a lot of these obstacles. So whatever you’re trying to do, I hope this helped in some way.
Thanks for reading.
