It is a much repeated piece of advice that you should always keep a camera with you if you want to be a photographer. In the analogue days that meant carrying a heavy piece of kit that instantly identified you as some serious about the medium. It meant making sure you had some spare rolls of film and time and money spent getting them processed.
Today, we all carry a camera in our pockets that require no pre-planning or additional cost. One that is almost invisible when being used. The smartphone has changed photography forever. We know that.
However, I wonder how often we use it for that function with the aim of improving our photography?
A guitarist plays every day to improve their playing as would anyone looking to master any instrument. An artist continually trains the eye to see through drawing and making. Sportsmen accept the importance of repetitive daily training to reach their goals. Regular and continual practice is accepted as required dedication across the arts, music and sports so why should photography be any different?
Of course there is no difference and yet I regularly see and hear requests for a secret key to how to improve. Practice is that key but there is no point in just making images without spending time reflecting and analysing those images. Considering why they work and fail, why they just miss. A guitarist can continually play but it is by recording their practice and listening that they learn to improve.
So, there is no reason to not make images every day if you wish to improve. Your camera is in your pocket. The only issue is your mindset. How you see photography.
If like me you see it as a process of documentation then making images everyday makes sense and is relatively straight forward. However, if you see it as a process of creating what you consider to be beautiful images based on planning, travel and construction then it is more difficult. The first approach is that of the visual storyteller whereas the second is the practice of the photographer who sees photography as being more important than the story.
Successful images can come from both approaches but the development of the second photographer will be slower and potentially less experimental than those adopting the former approach. Would Jimi Hendrix have created the sounds he did from a guitar without constant experimentation? Would Robert Frank have pushed the boundaries of photography without constant experimentation? I think the answer is clear in both of these examples. They had fun with their chosen mediums and surely that is why we should make photographs. Everyday.
Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Under Graduate and Post-Graduate Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of At Home With the Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006), Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019) and What Does Photography Mean to You? (Bluecoat 2020).
His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 www.donotbendfilm.com and he is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts.
© Grant Scott 2023