#555 You can start again!
Notas del episodio
What happens when you've already reached the heights of your profession, but find yourself searching for a new sense of purpose in something you've spent much of your life doing?
This week, I'm walking again with my dear friend Giles Penfound, a photographer who once worked at the very highest levels of his profession, documenting conflict and life in some of the world's most challenging and dangerous places, before his life and relationship with photography changed considerably. One moment he was making important legal documents with his camera, and the next, a 'deafening' quiet descended. What followed was more than a decade of trying to find his way creatively again, exploring large-format landscapes, printing, commercial photography, workshops, travel and wedding photography. But the more he searched for a new direction, the harder it seemed to become to reconnect with the very thing that had drawn him to photography in the first place.
Giles has now discovered being a photo tourist, an idea that has changed how he approaches photography and the world around him. It's about staying curious, finding interest in places we might otherwise overlook, not labelling yourself, being free to make photographs without feeling they have to belong together as part of a larger body of work or story, and approaching somewhere familiar with the same enthusiasm we'd bring to a country we've never visited. As we walk, we talk about ambition, reinvention, the expectations we place upon ourselves and what happens when the career that once defined us is no longer the whole story. And perhaps, after years of trying different doors, Giles has found one that feels worth opening.
Read more about our photographic adventures on our photography travel website, The Journey Beyond.
Links to all guests and features will be on the show page, my sincere thanks to our Extra Milers, without whom we wouldn't be walking each week, DxO.com and Arthelper.com, giving photographers smart tools to plan, promote, and manage your creative projects more easily.