Look forward to more and more frequent photography related posts. Basically, a friend of mine has somewhat recently gotten into digital photography, I've been itching to go out and shoot more, and I need to mentor someone as part of my masters program. Three birds with one stone is a win in my book, especially because I wouldn't have any time for doing even two of those things independent of each other.

While we're focussing in on his goals for where our interactions will take his photography, I'm already noticing a few benefits to myself after a few of our sessions.

One unsurprising benefit is that I get to play around with and talk about photography more and more regularly, which has been missing in my life. What I didn't expect was the degree to which this whole experience would give me an opportunity to reflect of my own knowledge and experience as a photographer. To be honest, my formal training in photography amounts to one community college intro course on the subject, and the rest has been my own independent study and personal experience with it as a hobby. Granted, I have other areas of expertise to draw from, including working in graphic design and growing up in a family of artists and educators, but I didn't really realize until recently how well that has all prepared me for this challenge.

That said, I expect that this relationship will present difficulties in the future. In fact, I think that it would be a sign of my failure as a mentor if we somehow avoid all of the pitfalls that should lie ahead. In my opinion, learning and growth go hand in hand with conflicts of perspective on the world and personal identity.

Unfortunately, I'd like to refer back to some of the goals we've set at this point in my post, but I can't do that on my iPod Touch. I'll have to leave this as an intro and a teaser for future posts on the subject.


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