"Figure out the game you are playing."

Taking Off the Mask: 2018 Ubud Indonesia D800 24-70mm

Page 2 of "The Photographer's Playbook" and I was stumped.  All Dan Abbe was asking me to do, in this first photographer's "play" was to figure out what game I was playing.  It would have been much easier to skip over this first assignment and move on to photograph the moon, or myself in a mirror.  But that would have been cheating.  

I spent the next few days trying to define the game I am playing, and once I began to be able to articulate it I really began stressing as Dan Abbe then asked me to learn my game. Well that means that I not only need to be able to articulate it, I need to be able to measure some form of progress to in my development. 

So I threw out everything I thought about art and photography.  I chose to forget that I lack talent, I chose to forget the gear I have or want to get. I forgot about digital, film, storage and display.  I needed to articulate my game and here it is.

I want to be able to approach street, landscape, portrait, architecture and still life photography and deconstruct it to a simple image with an emotional involvement. The idea is to create an image with "kando". This is my game.  Now how will I learn my game? 

Photography as an art form is made to be shared. Just as music is written to be heard, a photograph is taken to share. So I needed to take my photography in each of these genres to others and more specifically to people who understand photography.  I needed to be critiqued.  

So I divided up these understandings into a simple roadmap for my "game".  Below is the version as it sits now.  I am sure this will be altered over time, but this is where my thinking is at.

1. Study the genre and know 5 masters of the genre and what sets them apart, their philosophy, their style and their approach.  Two of them must be contemporary (still shooting today). This is the academic foundation which I consider vital.  
2. Go out and shoot.  Build a portfolio of 20 images with kendo within the genre and print them. This can be a darkroom print or a digital print. 
3. Get my portfolio critiqued but people who know photography. I can start with friends and move on to photographers I know but the goal is to have it professionally critiqued. Go back to step 2 and repeat.

There it is, I have defined my game and I have set out a roadmap to learn my game. I have included establishing the academic background, shooting, printing and sharing. The "end game" is when I have a portfolio that can stand up to a critique and images with kando. It only took me a week to do.  What a crazy photo assignment this turned out to be!