I will be starting up Focused Lens in July for those who are interested in a long term mentoring program for their photography.

Covid safe, you can attend at home. We meet monthly via your computer while you are at home. You get a dedicated session with me giving you encouraging and supportive feedback to drive you forward in your project.

You can watch and participate in the sessions of the others or selectively attend just your own time slot. In the past we have discovered that by participating with the discussion of the work of others to be incredibly valuable. Learning to discuss the work of others is important in your own growth.

Over a full year you work on your own project. Or projects. Something that excites and stimulates you. You need time to take and think about your photography for this to work for you.

One of the benefits of running Focused Lens in this manner is that it reduces the cost to you, with reduced travel and accommodation expenses and a cheaper price than I was previously running this program at. It is also possible to record the session and watch it again at your leisure. I actually did a research project on this for my Masters Degree. It is called ‘Interpersonal Process Recall’, I had to prove for my supervisor that watching a video of yourself participating and receiving feedback actually helped you with processing this new information. Seemed obvious to me at the time. But that’s the point of research isn’t it. To check if claims and experiments can be reliably repeated.

There is of course a downside and that is less social interaction with the other members of the program. Perhaps when we can we might like to gather for a session or a shoot. I miss our trips away and a shared glass of wine.

The program goes for a year. July to June. Twelve sessions. Roughly the first Monday of each month. I am also willing to run one on the day before, on the Sunday, if I have enough people interested.

I have been running this program for many years. I have found that people are very effectively able to use the monthly sessions as a motivational strategy to produce work for each session. It works a treat. It has been wonderful to see so many fantastic projects coming together over the years. Books, calendars, greeting cards, prints, framed photographs, exhibitions, websites and even businesses starting. We have even had our fair share of film photographers over the years too.

I hope you will consider joining us. A great way to take your photography to the next level. Growth facilitating. Development and refinement.

https://www.lensschool.com/workshops-tours/focused-lens-online-2020-2021

The leading photograph is from my own personal ISO Project of Sydney Wildness. This is taken ten minutes walk from home. I am still waiting for it to really pour again so I can revisit it. Unfortunately the last few times it rained I was working. Sigh.

Photograh and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2020