It has been about 2 weeks since I came back from Me Ra Koh‘s Discovery Workshop. It took me this long to process what I learned there and then some more time to figure out how I was going to write about my experience in a way that would do it justice.

If I could sum up my experience of the workshop in a very succinct way, I would say that I felt uncomfortable and challenged, yet welcomed.

The experience was like getting squeezed and churned through a meat grinder and then spit back out. At the other end of the grinder, I came out resembling myself, but changed. On more than one occasion, I wondered if I and the 21 other women attending the workshop were, in fact, in a 3-day therapy session rather than a photography workshop. We did a little of everything in addition to photography: meditating, movement, revealing ours personal thoughts and insecurities, thinking about what drives us as artists.

Day One of the workshop was intense on an emotional level. This was the day we brought our self-portraits to share. The instructors, Me Ra Koh, Brian Tausend, Garrett Burdick, Rick Chapman, and Lesley Ehrenfeld, each shared their self-portraits first. They then responded to each other’s portraits with comments made in the form of, “I see,” “I feel,” and “I imagine.” Then, we split up into smaller groups and did the same with our own self-portraits. For many of us, the comments we heard hit home soundly and echoed what we already knew or suspected about ourselves, but perhaps didn’t dare let out. Tears flowed all around.

Here’s the self-portrait that I brought to the workshop.

I was probably too busy trying not to collapse into a puddle of tears, so I don’t have a good memory of what I actually said. What I intended to say was that, with my self-portrait, I tried to illustrate how much of a nerd that I admit to being. And that I, and thus my identity, was still partially hidden. Why? I spent so much of my youth building up my self-esteem by doing well in school that after I left school and became a mother, I found it difficult to define myself. So, although being a mother was and is so very important, I was still asking, “What am I if I don’t accomplish anything?” Furthermore, here I am embarking on this journey of starting a photography business, and I can’t just fade back anymore and be the wallflower that I’m accustomed to being. How uncomfortable!

After taking a short break, we dove back into self-examination by free-form drawing with crayons.

I started off with looking at a single crayon lying on the paper, and I noticed the shadows created by the crayon. I started to fill the shadows in with some blue crayon. I was going to draw something based on noticing little subtle details. Then I stopped.

I was tired of subtlety—my own subtlety, actually. So, I started over with another color. I made a bold, orange circle, but it was too smooth and even. So, I added spikes and curvy flares. I pressed down hard with the crayon, building up more and more color. I made a giant fireball; a blazing comet. The flames and color engulfed and overtook the little blue shadow.

When we were done, we were asked to describe our drawings in a few descriptive words and then to use these descriptive words to form sentences that began with, “I am.”

My sentences were:

I am a giant, spiky ball of frustration.
I am bright flames of creativity.
I am a comet engulfing a shadow.

My crayon drawing was the complete opposite of my self-portrait. My self-portrait was somber and subdued. My drawing was taking me where I wanted to be. It was colorful and powerful.

We were still not done. Rick Chapman directed us to use the ideas and visual components of our drawings to take pictures. This time with our cameras! We set off into the rain, and here’s the picture that I took.

Rick explained to us that, in a photography business, we have to serve our clients—we make them happy by giving them the photos that they want. However, Rick asserted that it’s still very important to bring ourselves to our photographs. Otherwise, how soulless would photography be if we were only to make photographs for others’ sake? How quickly would we get burned out if there weren’t personal meaning in our pictures? We should strive to bring our own creative energy to each and every photo that we take. Let our own moods, contemplations, and opinions drive us when we make photographs, whether they are for other people or for ourselves.

I feel privileged that our instructors shared themselves as much as we did. Instead of just directing our self-examinations or giving recipes on “How to Do XYZ,” they freely and openly shared themselves with us—from Lesley’s provoking interpretive dance to Me Ra’s thoughts about her return from Thailand. All the instructors shared very personal stories and feelings. Here were these very talented, successful professionals, and they had many of the same basic struggles that we did. Here were these 21 other women, who all had different personalities and lives, and they shared the same insecurities that I did. I felt a strong sense of shared humanity on this day.

I also felt a strong sense of who I was, lumps and all, and how important it was to anchor my photographs with my own personal style and perspective.

Coming up next, Part Two of my thoughts on Me Ra Koh’s Discovery Workshop in San Francisco, CA.