Is there such a thing?
Seems I learn everything the hard way.
Worse, as Dr. Who says, "I'm a very dangerous fellow when I don't know what I'm doing."
Perfectionism is always the last step, not the first, and when you master something you realize there's no such thing as perfect anyways.
I never learned how to draw. My dad draws, my wife draws, my siblings draw, my kids draw. People, animals, trees, anything. Maybe my early fondness for cameras arises from that. I never got over the "hump" where I could draw fluidly because when I was a kid I couldn't get past the fact my drawings looked like kid's drawings. I took drawing again in college and ended up dropping the class. For me it was harder than my other classes, harder than calculus and chemistry, no matter how much encouragement I got.
And here's the funny thing. Put a camera in my dad's hands, my wife's hands, my sister's hands, my kids' hands, and they often take nicer pictures than I do even though they haven't much interest in the technology. They're artists with whatever tools they've got.
One of the things I've enjoyed about digital photography is that there is almost no penalty for taking bad pictures. I've "allowed" myself to became a more fluid photographer. I ought to have allowed myself to draw things that did not meet my own expectations as a kid. There was always plenty of blank paper in our house. With chemical photography every picture that didn't turn out as I'd visualized it was a disappointment that cost me money and time I didn't have.
I've only had one job in my life that required perfection, tolerated no shortcuts, and had very real deadlines that sometimes turned out to be impossible to meet. That was working in a blood bank. I think I learned something there. The first weeks working were terrifying, the first night I worked alone was even more terrifying, but gradually that went away. I was good at it and it meshed well with my perfectionism and OCD.
I never have learned to draw as well as anyone in my family and wonder if I'd be drawing now if I'd not dropped that class. But then again, maybe I'd have flunked calculus which would have caused me some real problems.
Good Luck!
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