"It was another great evening at Illuminate, reconnecting with photography friends and meeting some new ones. It's so nice to chat with other likeminded people, hear about their stories, experiences and put the photography world to rights!"
Well what can we say other than what a fabulous evening!
Last night we held our first meet up of 2024 and it didn't disappoint. Filled with range of photographic artists, great conversation and of course muffins!
The evening started with a brief introduction from owner and founder of Illuminate - Mikaela Rackham. She introduced everyone and explained that we were all from different backgrounds, some do it for fun, some as a full time job, some part time, and a whole range from landscape photographers, portrait photographers and absolute newbies to the world of photography. But most importantly no matter our background, experience or genre of photography, we can inspire each other.
The main focuses of the evening were to get to know each other, feel inspired and set some goals. We started with some question prompts - cleverly put into developing tanks. After around 20 minutes, we were switched so we had new people to chat to, and the same again 20 minutes later.
Questions such as;
How long have you been interested in photography?
What genres of photography do you enjoy the most?
Do you have any favourite spots for photography?
How do you overcome creative blocks or technical hurdles?
And
What are your photography goals for the future?
"Coming from a fairly amateur perspective, it was great meeting other photographers and discussing all things photography and learning new things from their experiences. There aren’t many opportunities out there where you get to meet so many in one place for a casual discussion about photography."
To be honest, we could have continued to do that for the evening, but Mikaela had planned a short task to help with planning for the year (or years) ahead. After discussing goals with each other Mikaela set a Mind Map task, which you can see and save below. This helped us to think about what we would like to do more, or less of, things we want to start doing, stop doing or keep doing!
We were then were encouraged to either take the Goal Setting task home or with some guidance from Mikaela, consolidate the Mind Map into measurable short term and long term goals. Which again, you can see and save below.
The entire evening was full of so much conversation, laughter with a relaxed vibe throughout. We all got to know each other, support each other with projects, ideas or just general thoughts and feelings, sometimes reassurance too, for the tricky parts of the photography world.
It was great.
“I felt nervous going to something new but everyone was so warm, friendly and chatty and the conversations kept flowing” A supportive, encouraging, engaging, evening where we all learnt something new! OUR NEXT MEET UP IS WEDNESDAY 27TH MARCH - LOCATION TBC
Everyone is welcome to come along!
