power lines and learning from peers

anyone who has has ever photographed with me knows how much i love to photograph power lines against the sky. there is just something about it that excites me. i've even convinced my photographer friend, aaron, to appreciate them more. he is a purest when it comes to nature or outdoor shots. he does not like to see anything man-made anywhere in his photo, because he thinks it takes away from the photo, the image, the view. so he strives to find shots where there is no evidence of man.

but i've made him see this a little bit differently since we met, and he now takes shots with power lines for the same reason i do—from an artistic point of view—seeing the lines and shapes they create and the movement and perspective they bring out. he even told me that he recently took a couple shots of power lines with my fondness of them in mind. i liked that. and they were really cool shots!

i've learned a lot from him, too. when i see his photographs of buildings, there is a sort of energy about them that i couldn't seem to capture when i took structural photos. so he taught me how he holds the camera and how he positions it against the lines of the building {which i am still practicing}. he also taught me to not be afraid to hold the camera low to the ground. i was always shooting from eye-level. but now i like to experiment because of him. i hold the camera up above my head, at the hip, or even down by the ground or on the ground.

something else he learned from me... he used to never take shots on an angle. he would joke around about my angled shots, and every time he would see one, he'd say, "it's crooked". but then... he started taking "crooked" shots as well. and now he loves to take them! {haha!}

this is the guy i bought my camera from, so he's also taught me other things, like some cool features that my camera has. i've used a couple of them here and there--mostly the color swap feature {where i made the sky purple or green instead of blue}.

it's fun to have someone to get excited about photography with. they make you see things in a new way, and hopefully you do the same for them. they teach you, and you teach them. you can look at each other's photos and get inspired. you can even go shooting with them—which i've had the opportunity to do with aaron and another friend on a couple of occasions.

it's the same reason i like the blogging community. i've learned from other photographers—for instance steve or meri {just to name a couple}. and i've had other photographers say they learned from me. how cool is that? all because of the internet. it's wonderful how it expands our knowledge and experience.

i want to constantly be growing in the art of photography, so i feel blessed to have people to learn from—not just teachers, but peers. in fact, i think i learn more from my peers than any photography teacher or class i have had or any photography book i have read. {not to discredit those things, because they are very important foundations for learning photography.} my friend aaron is just an amateur like me, but i really admire his photos.

do you have some photography buddies that you go on shoots with? do you just take pictures? or do you also get together to look at the other's photos and learn? i hope at least one of those, if not both, is true for you. i'm so glad it is for me.

{aaron shooting "on assignment" during our recent photography class/workshop}