Fifty Fifty: One lens. One Year.

What to expect

• A Supportive Community: A small, non-judgmental group of 20 like-minded creatives

• Monthly Connection: Live sessions designed to be an easeful journey, giving you the space to breathe and explore at your own pace.

• The opportunity to deepen your craft and discipline, enabling more instinctive photography - whether you’re a total beginner or have been a photographer for years

On looking back through my library, I was amazed at the amount of images I had made using a standard lens. In many ways, the lens choice shouldn’t be surprise because it largely matches the angle we see with our eyes. The challenge with photography is that the camera and lens choice gets in the way, distracting our presence with the subject. The well kitted out camera bag becomes noise, and a barrier to actually seeing.

This constant choice of changing lenses or zooming in and out makes photography a technical puzzle to be solved. We seem to have forgotten that photography is about the image, not the equipment. And by happy coincidence, carrying less equipment means we are freer to move around and make images, taking time to move closer to our subject rather than zooming in on it.

Once you begin to use one lens, you build an intimate relationship with the angle of view, the depth of field and natural compositions. You also stop having the fear of missing out because you only have one lens to use, it helps with the anxiety around making photographing. Distance becomes your zoom. You learn to use your legs and your positioning as the variable, which naturally makes you more active and more attentive in the landscape. Composition has to do more work. Without a focal length change to rescue a weak frame, you're forced to think harder about foreground, layering, negative space. You start noticing light and moment more, because you can't paper over a flat scene with a dramatic wide angle or a flattering long lens. What's there is what's there. It teaches patience.

If the 50mm can't get the shot right now, you wait, or you come back, rather than reaching for another tool to force it. Photographers who work with one lens for a long time report that they start to see in that focal length even without the camera up to their eye. That's the real prize. It's not about the images you make during the exercise, it's about training your eye to recognise a 50mm frame instinctively, which then makes you faster and more present whatever you're shooting. It mirrors the wider Discover Still idea of practice over performance: the value isn't the finished photograph, it's what the constraint does to your attention over time. The 50mm isn't magic. It's just one honest way of taking the decision-making out of the bag and putting it back in your eyes and your feet, which is where it was always meant to be.

About Paul Sanders

These days, I see myself less as  purely a photographer but more as someone who mentors and champions creativity in others. It’d be easy for me to teach you to take photographs in the same way that I do; to take you to stunning venues, tell you where to stand, which lens to use to capture the money shot – but it’s far more exciting to discover how you see the world.

With my workshops I want to create a safe place that’s free of judgement for photographers of all abilities – whether they’ve a bag full of kit or a smartphone in their pocket – to really explore their creativity and what creative expression means for them. I encourage people to explore their own space at their own pace, with their own eyes, giving them the absolute freedom to develop their creativity uniquely.

It’s all about finding yourself creatively and finding your style on your own terms – its not about validation, winning photography competitions or gaining approval through social media, but finding the courage to express yourself in your own way. To find your creative voice, and to photograph the world in the way you see it.