HOW TO: Use NLP Modelling to Become a Professional Photographer

Welcome stumblers!  Thanks for visiting.

NEVER HEARD OF NLP?  READ THIS FIRST – WIKIPEDIA ENTRY ON NLP

This webpage about NLP Modelling to master a skill caught my interest.  It is the documentary of an English soccer player, and NLP master, who wanted to use his knowledge of NLP to become a professional rugby player with only 1 year of training.   How does he plan to do this?  By capturing / studying / mastering the skills of the professionals.  A tagline on the site calls his journey “Cloning the Pros”.

Do you have something that interests you enough that you would want to become a ‘master’ at, but just not have the time to dedicate the approximately 10,000 hours typically required to master a craft?  For me, the closest thing I can think of is photography.  Several activities I enjoy doing are enjoyable because I do them at a novice level (I enjoy mountain biking, but I doubt I would enjoy being a pro biker).

Below is an excerpt from the Beautiful Aim website that I have edited to match someone using NLP techniques to become a professional photographer.

Skills capture

This phase involves viewing, reading, and absorbing as much information about photography and professional photograhpy as you can.  It takes place in increasingly difficult steps that transition from viewing at a distance to one-on-one meeting with professionals:

• Indirect access to professional photographers. This involves modelling from available footage and training material of professional photographers.  This involves books readily available at a library or bookstore as well as the thousands of hours of video and interactive material available on the internet.  Sites that have this material include Google Video, Digital Photography School, or my favorite BetterPhoto
• Direct access to professional photographers.  This involves finding professionals at work and observing them in action.  If your interested in wildlife photography, this could be hard and would require arranging a shadowing session.  If action and sports photography interests you, then sporting events would be a good place to see a sports photographer in action, likewise a fashion show to see fashion photographers, etc.  Another method would be to pay for a training session like the ones advertised in all the major magazines.  And yet another method would be to seek out membership in local photograhpy clubs.  If you don’t find someone that interests you in your local club then keep trying out other clubs until you find one or several members that you would like to emulate.
• Direct meeting with professional (master) photographers.  This involves arraning a direct meeting with professionals.  For many, they pay thousands of dollars for meetings and training with professionals.  However, for the enterprising, keep expanding your network to include photographers with years of experience.  Don’t discount what non-professionals have to offer you.  The big difference between a well published photographer like George Eliot and your local state-park wildlife photographer might just be circumstance and plain old luck.

Practice to mastery

This phase involves practicing the impersonations of professional photographers in increasingly more realistic environments, until you are able to perform at the top level with the same skill as the photographers you are modelling. This will involve:

• Solo skill practice.  This involves setting increasingly difficult goals like emulating various shots that you oooh and aaaah at in you favorite magazine.
• Skills practice in more demanding situations.  This involves setting deadlines and aiming for certain prizes like a top-10 in a major photo contest.
• Skills practice in a professional situation.  This involves pay-for-pic situations like a wedding shoot or snapping shots for a magazine.  Whatever the situation, this level is where you show off your skills in a professional situation to see if you have what it takes to ‘put bread on the table’.  At this stage, expect some failures and hard times, it will happen but it is at this time that you are not seeing what it takes, you are feeling what it takes.

Tic Tac’s and Domino’s, creating a story with pictures

CLICK ON PICTURE TO VIEW LARGER SIZE!

The use of point of view, foreground, and background to distort size.

Same concept, but altering picture contents to tell a story.

I took these two pictures for a class that I took at the State Univ. of New York. The assignment was to select a color in use that in two pictures representing low key and high key. I wanted to have a little fun with the assignment so I decided to tell a story of the domino bullies and the tic-tac’s. The first picture is to represent three of the domino bullies cornering a tic-tac. You can all imagine what happens next. The nex picture is to represent all of the tic-tac’s finding one of the domino’s all alone.

To take the pictures I used a zoom lens at around 200mm to partially blur the background, and limit the depth of field.  My aperture F-stop was around 4 which left my depth at around 3 inches. From there I had to wiggle around on my belly on the sidewalk to get the picture into focus and hide unwanted background elements. I can only imagine what my neighbors thought of me laying on the sidewalk with a camera, can of tic-tacs, and 3 dominoe’s. Now that picture would have been priceless.

In the end, I was pleased with how the pictures turned out. Not fully from a quality standpoint, but I was more happy that the story conveyed through the pictures and most of my classmates really “got” what I was trying to do.

Joy

Welcome Stumblers, Thanks for visiting.

This is one of my favorite pictures.  I’m quite surpised it has taken me this long to upload it.  I took this picture for a college photography class that I was taking.  This is actually around picture 5 in a series of 10, that involved the subject admiring balloons and eventually just walking away (unscripted).  The title of this post is joy because of the emotional charge of a child and handful of balloons.  I don’t have any hidden meanings, history, or symbolism in this picture, it just speaks for itself.

Self Portraits

Portrait 1, leaning on wall

Portrait 2, sitting on fence

Portrait 3, by the stream

Portrait 4, in the field

The inspiration for my self portraits was Hippolyte Bayard, and “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. For those of you who don’t know, Hippolyte Bayard was one of the inventors of photography and likely the inventor of the self portrait. He was not only a genius inventor, but his photography was beautiful, symbolic, and very artistic.

The first picture of me leaning against the wall is symbolic of the fact that I am pretty laid back and don’t take myself too seriously. The wall is to symbolize strength and independence. I consider myself very independent and self-reliant. However, this comes at a price in that I’m often reluctant to let people help me, and sometimes I create a wall around myself.

The first and second picture go together. The second picture is me sitting on the same wall from a different angle. This is symbolic of my inability to choose a side on most issues. I am proud of the fact that I’ve been very open minded and can see, and relate to, both sides of an issue. Unfortunately, this is another alienating feature of mine because so many people seem to always want to pick sides but I am never really able to side with either.

The third picture of me next to the stream is symbolic of my love of photography. I wanted to use water because it is often used in religion to symbolize renewal (baptism). The water was too cold for me to get in (considering I had another hour or two worth of pictures to take), so I decided to stand next to it. Getting into photography was my first real endevour into the arts. I was never good at drawing and my poetry is really just a blend of short-verse creative writing, so photography was a real breakthrough for me. It gave me a new lens for viewing life, and gave me a deeper appreciation for the beauty of nature and life in general.

Silly Girl

Silly Girl -

WHAT is so funny about having your hair draped across your face?

My Dear Child

My Dear Child,
You sleep so peacefully. Sleep for you is the great forgetter. When you awake, you’ll forget about the fights with your sister or the trouble you got into when you drew on the walls. All your pain and frustrations will drift into the darkness. Sometimes I worry that there are so many things that I have left to teach you. In reality, I have so much to learn.

Spirituality Of Darkness

Photography is a very spiritual and emotional form of expression. My best photographs have always been those that remind me of how I felt at the time I took the picture, for instance, if it was cold outside, does the picture make me feel my skin shivering. I like to use the camera, and post editing, as a way of capturing the “feeling” of the scene.

The scene for the pictures is a remote spot in the woods alongside a reservoir near my house. I choose to take the picture in the late evening/night (6:30-8:30pm) because of the effect darkness in the woods would have on my senses. Nightime in the woods is very spooky and noisy, I liken it “natures rush hour”. We live with our eyes, and as light is removed we have to begin thinking outside the box (I can’t see the lake, but how can I show people its there?). To further illustrate this face, I made a few notes about my surroundings for 5 minutes:

• woodpecker pecked twice,
• crickets cricketing
• birds flying
• birds singing
• wind blowing
• leaves rustling
• leaves falling
• trees swaying
• trees creaking
• trees groaning
• sun is falling
• sky darkening
• clouds passing
• a plane flew by

The three scenes should be viewed in order and are meant to capture the flow of emotions that I felt. That of peace with nature, fear of darkness, and finally appreciation of the beauty of a full moon reflecting on the lake. In addition it symbolizes the progression of our spirit in life: of wonder, fear of the unknown, and finally acceptance.

My first image is “Spirit Trees”. I chose to use this picture because its rather pleasant, and has a spiritual, oneness with nature, feel to it. I used a wide view, mid ISO, 1/3 second shutter speed, and post edited sepia and soft. The purpose of this photo is to capture the role that the trees play on the scene.

My second image is “Spinning Out of Control”. I chose this picture because it captures the emotional feeling of being in the woods as darkness takes over and you no longer have light to make you feel safe. I used a wide view, low ISO, 8 second exposure, and F2.8 aperature. I adjusted the tripod so the camera was pointing up, and then spun the camera in a circle while the shutter was open to give the feeling that the mind is spinning out of control. I softened the edges and shadows in post editing.

My third image is “Full Moon Rising”. I chose to use this picutre because it captures the beauty in the scene, and is meant to portray acceptance, accepting that even in darkness, light can still be found. For this picture I used a wide view, 8 second exposure and F2.8 aperature. I post edited the tint, softened the edges, and increased the brightness and shadows. Had my camera been capable, I would have used a 20-30 second exposure at low ISO.

Spirit Trees

Spinning Out Of Control

Full Moon Rising

EDIT: The story behind “Spinning out of control”:

I knew of a place a few miles deep into the woods where I could get some good photos for a college class in photography that I was taking. When I got to the spot, I couldn’t get the photos I wanted so after messing around for a while I decided to hike back to the car. Well, I thought that I would be ok because I had hike on the trail a few times before and understood the lay of the land. However, as the darkness started to fall, things started getting spooky. Emotion brings out the best in any artistic persuit, so I decided to take advantage of this fact and snap a few shots trying to convey the fact that I was starting to lose control.

Well, it started getting really dark and I could hardly see the trail ahead of me. This sounds pretty bad, but I was getting spooked by the squirrels (yes those cute little creatures with the long furry tails). They really freak me out when they start kicking up the leaves right next to you. I started going primal. This in itself is pretty scary because it really brings out the beast inside. I could feel all of the hair sticking up on my skin and my adrenaline was pumping really hard. I hiked through the woods like this for about an hour and it was such a rush.

For those of you interested in primal feelings, look up books on native american spirituality or Tom Brown.

The Journal

Journal

how i love your pages

waiting to be filled up with adventures

and thoughts and wisdom and emotions

but alas i can not do it

for the pen is mightier then the sword

but i can not put the sword down

and i am left stuck here

admiring your empty pages