My experience being mentored by William Patino.

Most people who love photography invest a lot of cash, it’s not a cheap hobby and it’s addictive. You want to arm yourself with the best kit you can afford and then you also need to spend on travel. Especially if you are a travel photographer. I decided not to buy more kit or travel out the country but to invest in learning.

I had asked a few photographers I respected if they would teach me and my experience was not good. I got ignored, shunned, I even got unfriended half way through a transaction on one occasion so I’m not going to lie, I was really disheartened, about the experience and I thought I was never going to progress in photography at all.

I had bought a tutorial from Will and had an issue with the download, I sent him a message and he got back to me really quickly and politely.. this polite attitude I was not expecting, I was very reluctant to get in touch incase the same as before, happened again but from day one the experience with Will was nothing less than positive.

At this point though, William Patino , seemed such a big name to me, unattainable almost but I knew he was in lockdown and just might have some spare time. So I had one of those moments where I just thought, what’s the worst that can happen, so I held my breath and asked if he would mentor me. That was the last time I was worried about getting in touch with him.

So we scheduled a zoom sesh where we’d chat about some images I’d made and uploaded, so he could ascertain how progressed I was… or in this case, was not. He had to listen to my nervous chatter for a while, the fella deserves a medal for his patience! I then realised he was not intimidating or scary, he’s just a typical ozzy that’s trying to provide for his family… a typical ozzy with ridiculous talent, but still.. So we had a couple of zooms. Actually there have been a couple of people in daily life that tried to help me with editing. “Think in 3D” , “create contrast within the mid tones”, “create depth when editing” all that did was confuse an already confused me.

Will just had a way of explaining the theory behind editing that was just east to grasp and his workflow that he was teaching me wasn’t over complicated jargon I was never going to remember, it was so easy to follow that I didn’t need to write notes down, just had to watch and listen. All was going fine and then I came back to him one day and I was still very much in an experimental phase … told him I’d been out shooting a lot and I could do with his help. This was the first time I’d had to wait for a while. Myself and Will haven’t spoken about this specifically and he may well just have been busy but I suspect that he really didn’t want to have to tell me that I had failed, spectacularly! But that’s why I needed him, to tell me where I went wrong, where and how I could improve… and to his credit he did. He didn’t make me feel like a failure, we just laughed about my aggressive skies and offensive foregrounds and he helped me back on my way.

Every lesson with him was positive and fun and I was left absolutely buzzing with the possibilities of things to go and try. He has been generous with his advice and help and he has made me much happier, calmer in the field, I now feel accepted by peers and have gone on to have an image selected for use in the press release of Landscape Photographer of the Year. Whether this competition leads nowhere or everywhere I know this step was absolutely not possible without Wills help.

Mentoring from him not only taught me an invaluable amount about photography and editing but it also taught me how to teach others and without that I wouldn’t have had the confidence to go on and do my own workshops which have been an absolute joy! I’ve also been asked to photograph weddings in the hills as environmental portraits. I keep having to pinch myself. I feel extremely lucky, and proud.

There’s a lot we could all learn from Will, how to be humble, gracious, polite and respectful of others. He has common courtesy nailed, it costs nothing.

disclaimer will cannot be blamed for any errors I may make in the future ;)

I hope everyone with any kind of goal in life has the same kind of influence as I’ve had here. It really has changed my life and I’ll be forever grateful.