I’ve often had the experience that I wanted to learn something new but gave up on it as soon as I realized how difficult it would be to learn. Take, for example, the time that I thought I would get into aerial photography.

Here are a few of the challenges that immediately faced me:

• Fear of heights. Yep, it’s pretty hard to take pictures from the air when you’re scared of being up there.
• Complexity of the art. There are many details to getting good aerial photos. I wasn’t interested in learning photogrammetry and other difficult parts of the art.
• Difficulty getting the right perspective. People often take aerial photos from the wrong angle and then must use computer software to correct it. It all seemed like too much for me.
• Trouble seeing pieces of the puzzle. Aerial photos are usually taken in a series and then each of the sections is put together to create a larger picture. I had trouble figuring out how to break landscapes into smaller pieces to be photographed.

I know that I give up too easily on things like this. That’s why I’m trying to start anticipating the challenges in things before I start trying them so I can decide if the activity is something that I really want to pursue.

Technorati Tags: aerial photography, photogrammetry