As I get older, the more I find that simply learning things is perhaps my favorite hobby. Trying new things and getting better at them. Adding and polishing to the skills I use to interact with the world.

To that end, I’ve been trying to get better at photography. This is not a new thing, as anyone who remembers my aborted attempts to post photos here might know, but it is also not something I’ve felt was making any progress. But that might have been too critical.

I recently joined a local photography club. The first meeting was quite eye opening, because they run it essentially as a monthly photo contest. Members each print out ten or so of what they consider their best pictures. The teacher, a professional photographer with something like 50 years’ experience, goes through each one and makes comments on technique or recommendations for improvement where he sees fit, then chooses the best couple of each person’s shots.

Then, he decides one overall winner for the day and gives them a little prize.

In just over an hour and a half I got a good half-dozen new ideas to bring into my own photography. So worth it for 500 yen a month. For example, the teacher really emphasized what he called sei to do, or stillness and motion. This means trying to show movement, say, in a landscape photograph by slowing down the shutter speed and catching water blurring as it rushes past or the blur of weeds blowing in the breeze. It’s not a universal, of course, but one way to make a photograph stand apart.

And although I didn’t know to bring any printouts, I showed a few of my camera pics through my smartphone and got some excellent compliments.

This one, for example, he loved due to the depth of field and the overall ambience:

I look forward to learning more, and maybe even taking home one of those monthly prizes!