Dahlia Season Consulting

I took two Intro to Photography classes at the same time, after I’d already learned the basics. I thought that the classes would be a waste of time, that I already knew what I needed.

The first class didn’t have any access to a darkroom for printing, so it used slide film. To work with slides, you must learn to capture the perfect image. There’s no room for correcting imperfections during printing. 

The temperature was hot all the time. Too hot for the film development process. My lab partner and I took turns fetching ice from the cafeteria to cool the water we used for developing and fixing. Every class. No room for error processing the positives.

Disappointed to not have a darkroom, I signed up for another Intro to Photography class at a nearby university, not for credit, but to have access to the darkroom. Again, I thought the instruction would be less than useful. It was quite useful. It turns out, I hadn’t learned all of the necessary basics from the friend who taught me the summer before. 

As I learned more, I began to understand what I didn’t know. I opened myself to learning from the beginning again and again. 

I went on to take night photography and learned about reciprocity tables and how to calculate long exposures, architectural photography with large format cameras, and a week in the White Mountains learning the Ansel Adams zone system. 

I learned to read luminance with my eyes. 

I learned to begin again. And again. To look to each instructor for their unique lessons. 

I began again when I became a Linux system administrator, and when I became a technical program manager, and when I became an agile coach. 

In every startup I joined, I began again, and again, and again. Letting each company, with its unique context, be my instructor. 

As I embark on building my own company, I embrace beginning again. I’m equal parts excited and terrified for what I’ve yet to learn. And although I think I know what I need to learn, experience tells me that there is no way to even pretend to anticipate what I’ll actually learn. 

I just need to turn on my beginner’s mind, to be open, and begin. Again.