Photographer Journeys - Terri Jones

At aspect2i we believe pho­tog­ra­ph­er devel­op­ment is best under­stood through real sto­ries rather than tes­ti­mo­ni­als. Each con­ver­sa­tion fol­lows one photographer’s jour­ney — how they learnt, what changed, where they strug­gled and how their way of see­ing evolved. Togeth­er, they reveal some­thing we care deeply about: that becom­ing a bet­ter pho­tog­ra­ph­er is ulti­mate­ly about becom­ing more aware of how you see the world. These are sto­ries of curios­i­ty, growth and dis­cov­er­ing a per­son­al way of seeing.

How Pho­tog­ra­phy Chose Terri

Five years ago, Ter­ri nev­er imag­ined she’d become a land­scape pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Today she’s cre­at­ing expres­sive images, explor­ing wood­land, coast­lines, and inten­tion­al cam­era move­ment, and work­ing towards her LRPS. This is the sto­ry of how pho­tog­ra­phy qui­et­ly trans­formed not only what she pho­tographed, but how she saw the world.

“I thought one thing I def­i­nite­ly was­n’t going to be was a land­scape photographer.”

Ter­ri laughs as she says it. Con­sid­er­ing where her pho­tog­ra­phy has tak­en her over the past few years, it’s one of those won­der­ful state­ments that sim­ply did­n’t age very well. Today, she’s hap­pi­est stand­ing in wood­land wait­ing for light to fil­ter through the trees. Or watch­ing waves crash against the shore­line. Or find­ing qui­et moments on pho­tog­ra­phy retreats where the land­scape has room to breathe.

But none of that was part of the plan. In fact, pho­tog­ra­phy was­n’t real­ly part of her plan at all. Like many peo­ple, Ter­ri came to pho­tog­ra­phy almost by acci­dent. It was­n’t a life­long ambi­tion or a child­hood obses­sion. It arrived qui­et­ly, almost unno­ticed, before grad­u­al­ly becom­ing one of the most impor­tant cre­ative out­lets in her life. Look­ing back now, it’s dif­fi­cult to imag­ine it unfold­ing any oth­er way.

Cre­ativ­i­ty Came First

Long before cam­eras entered the pic­ture, cre­ativ­i­ty already played a huge role in Ter­ri’s life. Her first career was in psy­chi­atric social work, work­ing in acute psy­chi­a­try. It was demand­ing, unpre­dictable work that required com­pas­sion, patience and the abil­i­ty to under­stand peo­ple. When she start­ed a fam­i­ly, how­ev­er, she realised the pro­fes­sion no longer fit­ted around fam­i­ly life. So, she retrained, and teach­ing became her sec­ond career. But it was­n’t just teach­ing; it was teach­ing creativity.

From the age of twelve she’d been mak­ing her own clothes, fas­ci­nat­ed by fab­rics, con­struc­tion and design. That life­long inter­est even­tu­al­ly led her into cre­ative embroi­dery, tex­tile art and teach­ing oth­ers how to devel­op their own cre­ative ideas. Work­ing along­side her close friend Nor­ma, she spent years run­ning work­shops and lec­tures, encour­ag­ing stu­dents to exper­i­ment rather than sim­ply fol­low instruc­tions. Lis­ten­ing to Ter­ri describe those years, it’s impos­si­ble not to notice how sim­i­lar her phi­los­o­phy was to pho­tog­ra­phy. ​“It was­n’t about every­one pro­duc­ing the same thing,” she explains. ​“It was about help­ing peo­ple find their own ideas.”

Terri’s expe­ri­ence reflects some­thing that every pho­tog­ra­ph­er even­tu­al­ly finds for them­selves. Learn­ing the tech­ni­cal side is impor­tant, but it’s dis­cov­er­ing your own way of com­mu­ni­cat­ing that real­ly matters.

The Cam­era Was Just Anoth­er Tool

She was­n’t try­ing to become a pho­tog­ra­ph­er; she sim­ply want­ed bet­ter ref­er­ence mate­r­i­al for her tex­tile work. An ear­ly Canon Pow­er­Shot became anoth­er cre­ative tool, sit­ting along­side sketch­books, sewing machines and fab­rics. She pho­tographed tex­tures, pat­terns, peel­ing posters and weath­ered walls, even man­hole cov­ers while trav­el­ling through Prague.

Back in the stu­dio, those pho­tographs would be trans­formed, manip­u­lat­ed and even­tu­al­ly stitched into embroi­dered art­work. The pho­to­graph itself was­n’t the fin­ished piece; it was sim­ply part of the process of cre­at­ing unique tex­tiles, but some­thing was hap­pen­ing that Ter­ri did­n’t ful­ly under­stand at the time. ​“I can remem­ber say­ing to Nor­ma,” she recalls, ​“that when I got a real­ly good pho­to­graph, I felt like I’d got some­thing.” Per­haps, look­ing back, pho­tog­ra­phy had already begun choos­ing her.

Lock­down Changed Everything

Then came 2020 and the COVID pan­dem­ic. Like so many peo­ple, Ter­ri sud­den­ly found her­self iso­lat­ed dur­ing the lock­downs. Liv­ing alone in Man­ches­ter dur­ing one of the most restric­tive peri­ods of the pan­dem­ic was­n’t easy. The days became qui­eter and longer, and pho­tog­ra­phy offered a rea­son to get out­side and, per­haps most impor­tant­ly, a rea­son to keep learn­ing. Around that time, she dis­cov­ered Emma Davies’ online pro­gramme, A Year With My Cam­era. ​“I could­n’t believe how well it was organ­ised,” Ter­ri says. As an expe­ri­enced teacher her­self, she imme­di­ate­ly recog­nised good edu­ca­tion­al design. The course did­n’t over­whelm begin­ners but intro­duced one new idea each week, where stu­dents prac­tised that one con­cept before mov­ing on to the next.

“The first six weeks were very tech­ni­cal,” Ter­ri remem­bers. ​“But each assign­ment was just one small step. ​“That grad­ual approach suit­ed her per­fect­ly, and with nowhere else to be dur­ing lock­down, she threw her­self into learn­ing. Every walk became an oppor­tu­ni­ty to prac­tise, and each week cumu­la­tive­ly built on the last and by the end of the first year, some­thing had changed, and she was hooked. After a talk by Michael Pilk­ing­ton to the cam­era club, Ter­ri knew that she want­ed to explore her pho­tog­ra­phy more and joined a pho­tog­ra­phy retreat with aspect2i. She says, ​“It proved to fit the bill”.

When the Hob­by Becomes Some­thing More

Ini­tial­ly, pho­tog­ra­phy had a prac­ti­cal pur­pose. She sim­ply want­ed to pro­duce bet­ter images of her tex­tile work for exhi­bi­tions and mag­a­zine arti­cles, but grad­u­al­ly over time, the cam­era stopped being a tool for the tex­tiles and pho­tog­ra­phy became the cre­ative outlet.

“I realised I was tak­ing pho­tographs because I want­ed to take pho­tographs.” Not because she need­ed them for anoth­er project or because some­one expect­ed her to, sim­ply because she loved mak­ing them. She had­n’t just learned how to use a cam­era; she was becom­ing a photographer.

Learn­ing to See

Every pho­tog­ra­ph­er reach­es a point where the cam­era starts to feel famil­iar. The con­trols become sec­ond nature and com­po­si­tion becomes instinc­tive. For Ter­ri, though, the biggest break­through was­n’t tech­ni­cal; it was learn­ing to ask a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent ques­tion: not how to pho­to­graph some­thing, but why.

She remem­bers one par­tic­u­lar con­ver­sa­tion dur­ing an aspect2i retreat that com­plete­ly changed the way she approached pho­tog­ra­phy. Stand­ing beside a small har­bour, she was doing what many pho­tog­ra­phers do. Look­ing for lead­ing lines and study­ing the rocks and her sur­round­ings, con­sid­er­ing bal­ance and composition.

Michael Pilk­ing­ton wan­dered over. ​“What are you pho­tograph­ing?” he asked. ​“The rocks,” Ter­ri replied, ​“or maybe the boat and rope” She list­ed all the visu­al ele­ments she’d care­ful­ly arranged in her mind. Michael smiled. ​“No,” he said. ​“What are you pho­tograph­ing?” It stopped her in her tracks. ​“The sky,” she even­tu­al­ly realised. ​“That’s what I’d actu­al­ly been look­ing at.”

It’s one of those decep­tive­ly sim­ple con­ver­sa­tions that stays with you long after the work­shop has fin­ished. Ter­ri often refers back to it because it changed the order in which she now works. Instead of begin­ning with com­po­si­tion, she begins with emo­tion and what is it that’s caught her atten­tion. Only once she under­stood that did she start think­ing about focal lengths, lead­ing lines or cam­era set­tings. As pho­tog­ra­phers, it’s easy to become absorbed in the mechan­ics of mak­ing pictures.

Ter­ri’s expe­ri­ence is a reminder that the strongest pho­tographs usu­al­ly begin with some­thing much simpler.

Look­ing Back to Move Forward

One of the fas­ci­nat­ing things about talk­ing to Ter­ri is how often she draws con­nec­tions between pho­tog­ra­phy and the careers she’s already lived. Teach­ing cre­ative tex­tiles was­n’t about show­ing stu­dents how to copy; it was about help­ing them dis­cov­er some­thing per­son­al, and look­ing back over years of stu­dents’ work, she noticed an inter­est­ing pat­tern. Peo­ple rarely knew what their work was real­ly about.

Themes revealed them­selves over time, and the artist was often the last per­son to notice. She expe­ri­enced the same thing her­self. Years after cre­at­ing a body of tex­tile work, she realised much of it explored the place of women in soci­ety. She had­n’t planned it, but the work cer­tain­ly reflect­ed what was occu­py­ing her sub­con­scious. Pho­tog­ra­phy, she believes, works in exact­ly the same way. ​“I don’t think you decide your themes,” she says. ​“I think they find you.”

It’s an obser­va­tion that many pho­tog­ra­phers will recog­nise. If you were to spread fifty pho­tographs across a table, pat­terns begin to emerge, not because you planned them but because they’re part of who you are.

Hope Beyond the Horizon

When Ter­ri began look­ing close­ly at her own pho­tographs, one theme kept return­ing: hope. It was­n’t obvi­ous at first, but once she’d seen it, she could­n’t unsee it. She talks about sit­ting beside the sea, fas­ci­nat­ed by the thin line where water meets sky. ​“It’s what’s over there,” she says. ​“That’s what inter­ests me.” ​“It’s excit­ing.” The hori­zon becomes more than a hori­zon; it becomes possibility.

That same idea appeared while pho­tograph­ing teasels. Ini­tial­ly she was obsessed with cap­tur­ing the exact moment a seed detached from the plant. Tech­ni­cal­ly it was an inter­est­ing chal­lenge, but emo­tion­al­ly it turned out to be some­thing else entire­ly. Only lat­er did she realise those pho­tographs remind­ed her of chil­dren leav­ing home, start­ing new jour­neys and tak­ing their first steps into the unknown.

“I did­n’t know that’s what I was pho­tograph­ing at the time,” she admits, ​“I only realised after­wards.” That’s per­haps one of the loveli­est things about pho­tog­ra­phy. Some­times the cam­era under­stands us before we under­stand ourselves.

The Impor­tance of Hon­est Feedback

One sub­ject that came up repeat­ed­ly dur­ing our con­ver­sa­tion was cri­tique. Not crit­i­cism. Ter­ri believes there’s an impor­tant dif­fer­ence. Like many pho­tog­ra­phers, she’d spent years hear­ing peo­ple say her pho­tographs were ​“love­ly.” It’s encour­ag­ing to hear, but it only takes you so far. ​“I remem­ber say­ing I need­ed some­body who would­n’t just say nice things.” Not some­body who would tear pho­tographs apart, but some­body who would help her under­stand them and now she describes cri­tique as analy­sis rather than judgement.

How does the pho­to­graph make peo­ple feel? Where does the eye trav­el? What ques­tions does it leave unan­swered? Those are far more valu­able con­ver­sa­tions than decid­ing whether an image is ​“good” or ​“bad.” They’re also the con­ver­sa­tions that help pho­tog­ra­phers grow. Ter­ri has found those dis­cus­sions through her cam­era club, through Emma Davies’ excel­lent learn­ing com­mu­ni­ty and, more recent­ly, through aspect2i pho­tog­ra­phy retreats where small group sizes allow much more indi­vid­ual tuition. ​“It’s much more per­son­al,” she says. ​“You’re work­ing with me where I am.”

Every pho­tog­ra­ph­er arrives with dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences, indi­vid­ual ambi­tions and unique ways of see­ing the world around them. Good tuition isn’t about treat­ing every­one the same; it’s about help­ing each indi­vid­ual move one step fur­ther along their own jour­ney, and Ter­ri is a won­der­ful exam­ple of what hap­pens when that approach begins to bear fruit.

From Pho­tographs to Per­son­al Expression

Ask Ter­ri where her pho­tog­ra­phy is head­ing, and she does­n’t hes­i­tate. ​“I want to make them more like a piece of art than a pho­to­graph.” It’s a sim­ple sen­tence, but it says every­thing, as she’s no longer inter­est­ed in sim­ply record­ing what was in front of the cam­era; she wants to com­mu­ni­cate some­thing deep­er. ​“I don’t want a pic­ture of,” she says, ​“I want a pic­ture about.”

If there was a sin­gle sen­tence that summed up our con­ver­sa­tion, that might be it because once you begin think­ing that way, pho­tog­ra­phy changes and tech­nique becomes a tool for dia­logue rather than get­ting the job done, and edit­ing becomes clar­i­fi­ca­tion and inter­pre­ta­tion rather than correction.

Cre­ative tech­niques such as inten­tion­al cam­era move­ment and mul­ti­ple expo­sures have become increas­ing­ly appeal­ing, not because they’re fash­ion­able, but because they help Ter­ri express ideas that straight­for­ward pho­tographs some­times can­not. She recent­ly showed us an ICM pho­to­graph made at Cros­by Beach. Any­one famil­iar with Antony Gorm­ley’s famous sculp­tures would prob­a­bly expect anoth­er pho­to­graph of the iron fig­ures, but Ter­ri delib­er­ate­ly ignored them, and instead, she found some­thing entire­ly dif­fer­ent. The result­ing image felt painter­ly and expres­sive. ​“I want­ed my own slant on it.” She said, and that’s exact­ly what she achieved.

Still a Student

One thing that becomes obvi­ous after spend­ing time with Ter­ri is that she gen­uine­ly loves learn­ing. ​“I’d quite hap­pi­ly have been a per­ma­nent stu­dent,” she laughs, and there are still tech­niques she’d like to mas­ter, like long expo­sure water and using fil­ters con­fi­dent­ly, along with improv­ing her image edit­ing. But those tech­ni­cal goals feel very dif­fer­ent now; they’re about adding new cre­ative tools to an ever-grow­ing tool­box. As the tech­ni­cal side becomes increas­ing­ly instinc­tive, more men­tal space becomes avail­able for the things that real­ly mat­ter. Ideas, emo­tion and sto­ry­telling is where pho­tog­ra­phy becomes tru­ly rewarding.

Look­ing Ahead

Towards the end of our con­ver­sa­tion, Ter­ri men­tioned some­thing she’d only recent­ly begun say­ing out loud. The LRPS dis­tinc­tion. Like many pho­tog­ra­phers, she’d thought about it and won­dered whether she should and was con­cerned whether she was ready. Once she’d said it aloud, though, it some­how became real. Know­ing Ter­ri, there’s every chance that by the time you’re read­ing this she’ll already be work­ing towards it because every project becomes anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cov­er some­thing about herself.

Pho­tog­ra­phy Chose Her

It’s fun­ny how often pho­tog­ra­phers talk about find­ing pho­tog­ra­phy. Lis­ten­ing to Ter­ri, it almost feels the oth­er way round: pho­tog­ra­phy found her whilst qui­et­ly thread­ed its way through a career in tex­tiles, wait­ed patient­ly while she taught hun­dreds of stu­dents to dis­cov­er their own cre­ativ­i­ty. Even­tu­al­ly revealed itself as the per­fect cre­ative com­pan­ion to every­thing she’d already spent a life­time doing.

Per­haps that’s why her pho­tographs con­tin­ue to evolve so nat­u­ral­ly. They’re not try­ing to imi­tate any­one else; they’re becom­ing hers unmis­tak­ably. When we asked Ter­ri what we could do to help her next, her answer was beau­ti­ful­ly sim­ple. ​“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing.” It’s hard to imag­ine a nicer com­pli­ment because pho­tog­ra­phy didn’t sim­ply give Ter­ri anoth­er hob­by. It gave her anoth­er way to explore cre­ativ­i­ty, ask ques­tions and express her­self. And if her jour­ney over the past five years is any indi­ca­tion, she’s only just get­ting started.