The Value of Live Education

In my living room, right in my line of sight as I watch TV, is a portrait of our amazing granddaughters. They live in California. We live in Nebraska. But it doesn’t matter  how far apart we are because  I can look at that portrait on my wall or scroll through the snapshots on my phone or play a little video their parents sent and it’s just as good as being there…

NOT!!!!!!!

 Why am I telling you this obvious big fat lie? Because I want you to understand that watching videos on line or belonging to social media groups is not the same as actually attending your local or state photography associations. The relationships you make are not the same online as in person. The education you get is not the same as sitting in an actual seminar. 

Looking at a supplier’s website is not the same as touching and feeling their products.  I always sort of knew this but I really learned it at the first Imaging USA after covid.  There was a frisson of excitement in the air. The energy was electric. Someone asked me how it was different and I told them I felt like I’d healed from an ailment I didn’t even know I’d had. 

So, here are some reasons why in-person is so much better than online. When you are actually sitting in an audience, listening to an instructor, you can ask questions and get immediate answers. Others will ask things that you hadn’t even thought of.  You see the posing in three dimensions and you instantly see how an action or statement of the instructor effects the subject’s demeanor or expression. And you will see  their failures and how they fix them, not just the perfection of the video that may have been re-shot  many times.

 Next, other photographers are sitting right next to you in the audience, not two states away. Comments they make can bring up ideas you never considered. I go to IUSA every year. I always learn more from the casual conversations over lunch in the trade show, than I do in the actual programs.  When I’m looking at a particular product in some supplier’s booth, someone will walk by and mention how successful (or unsuccessful) that product was in their own studio. Or maybe how they used it in a whole new way I would never have thought of. You learn a lot just being around other photographers.

 You make friends and develop a support system. Do you really think that some person, across the country, whom you’ve never met, but they listened to the same pod cast, is going to send you their spare camera  when both of yours are in for repair and you’ve got a wedding coming up?   Can you call one of the other guys who watched the You Tube video and ask him his take on what the speaker said? 

Or when you get cancer, is everyone who watched those videos going to have a fund raiser for you to cover your living expenses for the six months you have to shut down your studio? Don’t say that’s farfetched because it happened to my husband and our photographer friends did just that. While at our state conference just this weekend, a member’s husband passed away. Another member left to be with her right away and everyone else took up a collection to help our friend. 

Through the years we’ve borrowed equipment and leant out our own. We’ve covered events for photographers who have had issues come up. Once an acquaintance called me because her husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness and they were booked solid with weddings for the rest of the summer. She didn’t know where to turn. I took over and within three hours I had all the dates covered for her. 

One photographer didn’t know the man who was ill and she said to me “but he is a member of PPofN right?”, I told her he was and she said “OK, I’ll take X & Y dates.”.  And every single photographer turned over the files to the photographer’s widow and took no compensation whatsoever. 

So, then there is print competition. Nothing has done more to improve our work over the years than participating in print competitions. And after we got better, we started winning awards.  Sure, you can enter MIR or IPC even if you aren’t a state member but trust me, you are way more likely to win something on your state or local level than on the national level. It’s just the odds.

So, once we started winning a few things, we issued press releases and posted on social media. We developed a reputation as the studio that is always winning awards.  And being active in your state or local will bring you in touch with many highly accomplished photographers, the majority of whom will be willing to mentor you for print competition or anything you need help with. But sitting in your studio behind a computer monitor that’s probably not going to work out so great. 

Membership gives you a chance to pay it forward. We are NEVER going to be able to repay the generosity of our fellow photographers  when my husband had cancer. We are NEVER going to be able to help our first print comp mentors like they helped us.  But we can pay it forward. And let me tell you, as much fun as it is to have a big success at competition or sales or whatever, it’s even more fun to see someone else have a WOW moment and know you contributed to that in some small way.

People who work for a company are around their co-workers every day. Sure, we see clients but it’s not the same relationship.  Being a part of your state or local associations gives you friends who know what it’s like to walk in your shoes. It gives you a family when you are down. And it gives you a network when you need one.  And if you say “well I can’t afford to attend the conferences.”, well that means you aren’t charging enough for your work. But that’s a different blog post for a different day.