Consuming Photography vs. Learning Photography

For most of my life, I thought I was learning photography.

I read the books. I watched the videos. I highlighted passages like they were gospel. I collected advice the way some people, including myself, collect lenses—always convinced the next one would finally unlock something.

I’ve been taking pictures for four decades. I’ve got more than sixty photography books sitting in my library. And yet… if I’m honest, there were long stretches where my work didn’t really move. Not in any deep way. Not in a way that felt like growth.

Then something changed.

Not because I found a better YouTube channel. Not because I bought the “right” camera. But because I committed to a timeline that doesn’t let me hide: a 105-week journey to produce three or four bodies of work worthy of a gallery wall or a printed page (the framework is here: Three Sessions a Week for 105 Weeks).

When you put a clock on the dream, consumption stops feeling like “being responsible” and starts looking a lot like what it sometimes is: A comfortable form of procrastination.

The lie: information feels like progress

Passive consumption is easy to confuse with learning because it feels productive.

Read an article. Watch a tutorial. Save a post. Screenshot a lighting diagram. Nod along like you’re absorbing it.

But “absorbing” isn’t the same as changing. And learning, the kind that shows up in your pictures, requires change. It requires friction. It requires consequence.

A few of the pieces I read recently hammered this home:

• Passive consumption can introduce ideas, but it doesn’t reliably create retention or real-world skill.
• Real learning starts when you try to explain something, apply it, and wrestle with it.
• When you over-consume, you risk understanding things conceptually but not deeply enough to use them in new situations.
• And sometimes consumption becomes a perfection trap: “one more thing” before you’re “ready.”

That last one hurt a little, because I recognize myself in it.

The shift: I started treating information like a tool, not a hobby

Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking:

“What should I read next?”

…and started asking:

“What does this change in my next shoot?”

That’s the line.

If a piece of information doesn’t lead to action—if it doesn’t show up as a decision, a constraint, a test, a failure, a refinement—then it’s not learning. It’s entertainment with better branding.

And I’m not judging entertainment. I love photography books. Always will.

But I’m building bodies of work now. That demands a different relationship with input.

What “active learning” looks like in my photography life

One of the simplest definitions I’ve seen is that active learning means you do something with what you just consumed: reflect, summarize, teach, apply.

So here’s what that looks like in my world, on the street, in the cold, in Toronto, when my hands are numb, and the camera suddenly feels heavier than it should:

1) I filter harder than I used to

Not everything deserves my attention. Most of it is noise.

I don’t need ten different opinions on the same topic. I need one clear idea and a place to test it.

2) I “touch” the idea as fast as possible

If I watch something about on-camera flash, I don’t bookmark it for later. I build a small experiment and shoot it. Same week. Preferably same day.

3) I retrieve before I re-consume

This one is sneaky and powerful: before I re-watch or re-read, I try to write down what I remember. What I think the steps are. Where I’m unsure.

That gap—between what I think I know and what I can actually recall—is where learning lives.

4) I teach what I’m trying to learn

Writing these posts isn’t just “content.” It’s a forcing function. If I can’t explain it clearly, I probably don’t understand it.

5) I let repetition do its quiet violence

I’ve written before that style isn’t found—it’s grown. It’s what’s left behind by repetition. (Style Is the Residue of Repetition)

That idea hits harder when you realize repetition isn’t just how style emerges—it’s how learning becomes embodied.

Not “I know the theory.”
More like: “My hands do it without asking permission.”

The real difference: recall vs. embodiment

One line from an experiential learning piece stuck with me: there’s a difference between recalling knowledge and embodying it—and that deeper change comes from doing.

Photography is the perfect example.

You can “know” composition. You can “know” light. You can “know” the decisive moment.

But when you’re on the sidewalk, and the scene is unfolding at human speed, knowledge that lives only in your head is too slow.

The camera doesn’t reward what you’ve read.
It rewards what you’ve rehearsed.

The unexpected outcome: I’m calmer now

Here’s the weird part.

This whole shift has made me calmer, not more stressed.

Because I’m no longer trying to solve photography in my head.

I’m running a loop:

1. Consume a small idea
2. Test it in the real world
3. Review what happened
4. Write it down
5. Repeat

That loop turns information into something I can trust.

And trust is what lets you stop second-guessing every frame.

If you’re stuck, try this

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Yeah… I might be consuming more than I’m learning,” here’s a simple constraint you can steal:

For the next month:

• Every time you consume something about photography, you owe it one small experiment.
• Not a full project. Not a masterpiece.
• A test.

One input → one output.

Because progress isn’t hiding in the next tutorial.

Progress is on the other side of action