Mentor Me Success

I had read about the SWPP & BPPA Mentor Me Programme but it was only quite recently that the opportunity arose to attend one of these sessions.

Menot Me Having spent many years struggling in the dark, (no pun intended) I am always keen to listen to experts whom I hope will develop my photography. The trouble is that there are experts and there are experts! Time and time again it is easy to become disenchanted with expert advice as the comments received quite often are unimaginative and uninspiring and just plain mundane. Certainly the expert technocrat will be able to hold forth at length on exposure, depth of field, the dreaded “thirds” et al. All issues that we can cover ourselves by reading the mountains of literature that exist in our Industry. Rarely does one meet an expert whose approach is different and enlightening.

In my experience, the SWPP & BPPA 'Mentor Me' Programme is a step ahead of traditional mentoring. My session was conducted by Martin Grahame-Dunn who communicated a direction in which he thought I should take my photography. I found this very refreshing. Certainly there were the usual comments about composition and printing but these were secondary to overall direction. I hadn’t realised it until then that this type of help was exactly what I had been lacking over the years.

Mentor Me I have reached the “bus-pass” years and I am sure you would forgive me if at the end of that lengthy mentoring session I went home and collapsed in my favourite armchair with my favourite tipple. What I did that evening was to re-crop and reprint all the images that were covered that day because I couldn’t wait to apply the guidance received during mentoring.

I am delighted with the modified results and a long-time photographic colleague of mine, who is an ARPS, was so impressed that he wishes to become included in the 'Mentor Me' Programme. Nuff said!

Stuart Grieve LSWPP LBPPA

The SWPP 2008 Convention was an outstanding success,
we have 192 days to get ready for the 2009 convention - which starts on January 14, 2009

Photo Quote: Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man. - Edward Steichen