mentorship advice

[Mytusi]

A seasoned photographer that has travelled the world and I respect accepted to mentor me.

She is glad to support me in my eagerness to learn photography but there are two small obstacles: she has limited time and it will be a 'long distance' mentorship. I will really have to be proactive and smart about it.

How can I take full advantage of this opportunity? What would you do? How would you structure this relationship? What would you be looking for?

Thank you!

[Murtasma]

Since it will be a long distance learning you will only get out of it what you put into it. Will this mentorship just be over online/phone conversations?

[Mytusi]

Thanks Murtasma for your quick reply. Yes, it will probably be mainly online conversations.

I completely agree I will only get out of it what I put into it, that's why I really want to be smart about what I ask for.

[BabetteKD]

I've done a long distance mentorship before. Basically what I did was quickly summarized what I did during the period we last contacted eachother (I only ever got 4 e-mails from him) and he would give me a brief description of what I could/should do for my project.

[Mytusi]

Thank you, BabetteKD! So basically, you chose a project you were interested in, did your best to inform yourself about it, take photos and then talk about them with your mentor?

[BabetteKD]

actually it was for designing a poster, so I told my mentor about the problems I had (my models suddenly refused to be photographed on the day of the shoot, I had to find 2 more), then the pictures were miserably blurry because I had to go to them and the lighting was miserable. He gave me some suggestions to force the images to work, then to make the image secondary to the typography that had to be added in to make up for the shoddy pictures.

This was long before I was interested in photography at all and had a 7.2MP P&S camera. I barely knew any of the functions other than to turn the flash on and off. My mentor was very understanding (or whoever he may have gotten to write the message) and gave me some advise. I actually got more out of it than I expected.

How exactly did you find your mentor? My professor just told us all to go to a site (I believe it was redbook.com), find a business with designers and basically coldcall/coldemail them and hope for the best.

[Mytusi]

I see, BabetteKD. I am thinking that I should make a list with specific areas I want to improve at and go back and forth on the results like you did.

How exactly did you find your mentor? My professor just told us all to go to a site (I believe it was redbook.com), find a business with designers and basically coldcall/coldemail them and hope for the best.

My husband actually knew this photographer and he asked her if she would be willing to mentor me. Cold calling/ cold emailing is hard job!! Good job that you got someone!

[LoveDSLR]

My recommendations are:

1) make it easy for your mentor by not wasting her time
Don't just email a photo and ask "what do you think?"

Tell her what settings you used and why, why that particular composition and what you want to learn with that photo.

2) make her feel rewarding as your mentor
Be a 'Yes' person even you disagreed. Butter up now and then.

[Mytusi]

'LoveDSLR', thank you for your practical recommendations!

[Jim Bryant]

I remember racking up huge telephone bills talking with my mentor. Not to mention shipping off prints and slides. Thank god for the internet. Still, having a mentor is better than no guidance at all. With email, website and such, should be a snap.