Photography Mentoring

As mentioned in my previous post I’m reading The Photographers Market Guide to Building your Photography Business.  I haven’t finished it yet but one of the things that really struck a chord with me was “mentoring”.  I have found that the kindness of other photographers has been invaluable in my struggle to learn more about photography and about business.  Even this blog has helped me in numerous ways, whether it is the lovely photographers who agree to be interviewed or the kind suppliers who have shared their details. I visit flickr regularly and the people there share marketing information and will even critique images and this is great but I think that I might benefit from a mentor.

Mentoring is a wonderful way of passing on decades of learned information from one photographer to another. I’m hoping that I can learn a specific topic by finding a mentor that does something similar.  I hope that it will help other aspects of my photography too and that I will get some honest feedback that will help me to improve.

Finding a mentor seems to me like quite a scary thing to do, but there are some important things I need to consider:

1. The type of photography

My favourite type of photography is portrait with a leaning towards small children & babies but I really like fashion orientated shoots too especially with teenagers and young adults.   I have tried my hand at weddings (far too stressful for me personally) and architecture but they just don’t do it for me.

2. Find photographers I like!

Well this bit is easy – I could probably list a dozen photographers – in fact I definitely could. I follow most of their blogs, or “like” them on facebook (I’m not a stalker – honest)

3. What do I Want from the Relationship?

I think this is an important point to make.  Without an idea of what you want both me and the mentor might end up spending a lot of wasted time.  Personally I’m looking for someone to bounce ideas off, who might be able to save me making silly mistakes and even critique my work.

4. Get In Touch with the PhotographerOk, so this bit terrifies me!  For some, this part is easy and if that’s you, I’m sure you already know what to do, but for me its pretty scary – It means admitting that I need help and then actually asking for it! So beware – if you get an email from me please be gentle... I love your work and I love photography.

So I’m going to keep an open mind and take a chance that somewhere out there is a fantastically kind photographer who will help me... Get in touch if you have a mentor or your’re thinking of getting one just like me!  There will be an ongoing discussion on our facebook page!