What might happen if I stop being okay with repeating the same mistakes?

Or why I pursued a Licentiate Distinction with the RPS

UK, Summer 2025

We spent last summer back in the UK. We were blessed with glorious weather, even up north in Greater Manchester, the sun was shining and rain stayed away.

I spent a lot of the time there with my camera in hand, capturing the places near where I’d grown up, as well as some new (to me) locations like Bath.

My Journey as a Photographer

For me, photography has always been a way of connecting with a place. It slows me down. It helps me notice details I would otherwise miss.

But for many years I had fallen into a habit of only using my camera on holidays. I wasn’t improving technically. I rarely edited my images properly. Most of them stayed on my SD card, unseen. Once a year I made a family album, but I wasn’t really developing as a photographer.

For a long time I had considered taking a photography course with the Open University. And for just as long, I told myself there was no point.

I wasn’t planning to become a professional photographer.

So why bother learning properly?

Looking back now, I think the real reason was simpler.

I didn’t think I was good enough.

Then last year, I discovered the Royal Photographic Society distinctions. I found myself wondering:

What might happen if I stopped being comfortable making the same mistakes? Always missing the same types of shots due to poor setting choices, or simply not seeing clearly what was in the frame.

What might happen if I actually tried?

Back to summer 2025 & The Moment That I Missed

We spent some time near where I grew up along the Dorset Coast around Bournemouth. Even though my family no longer live there, I wanted my son to see places he remembered from when he was smaller, and the places I’d been as a kid.

We took an open-top bus from Bournremouth down to Hengistbury Head and walked down to the spit before taking the ferry across to Mudeford for some crabbing.

As we were walking along the path, along a wooded section of the headland, my husband was asking if there are snakes in England.

“Yes,” I said, “There’s a snake called an Adder that’s found in this part of the country, but I’ve never seen one.”

“Are they poisonous?” he asked.

“Yes. Apparently, it’s been 50 years since anyone has died from an adder bite. So we’d make the news if we were bitten by one!”

At that exact moment, our son said:

“Snake!”

I assumed he was joking.

He wasn’t!

An adder was crossing the path in front of us.

I put my camera up to my eye and tried to take a photograph. But of course, as soon as I tried to get a fraction closer, it slithered off. The shots I did get, weren’t well-focused.

I’d missed a once-in-a-lifetime photograph because I didn’t know my camera well enough.

It’s still a good story.

But it would have been a better photograph.

And that moment stayed with me.

Not the worse photo, but not a good photo either! The focus is in the wrong place!

Deciding to Take Photography Seriously

When we returned to Singapore, I finally signed up for the Open University course and decided to work toward the Royal Photographic Society Licentiate distinction.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time!

I moved quickly through the course material. I enjoyed sharing work with other students. I began to understand what I had been doing wrong, and how to fix it. I also learned how to use Lightroom properly, with help from a few generous YouTubers.

Perhaps the most pleasing change was internal.

The self-doubt that would probably have stopped me five years ago didn’t get in my way this time.

Being “good enough” stopped being the goal.

Learning to see more clearly and refine my vision to express what I see through my photography, became far more important.

Submitting the Panel

I finished the OU course early and spent most of January preparing a panel for submission to the Royal Photographic Society. I read the submission guidelines, over and over, and poured through the successful panels on their website.

There’s a submission deadline at the end of each month. So, as January came to an end, I decided I’d done enough and sent my work in.

Then I waited.

For six long weeks I was convinced I’d failed.

I questioned my image choices. I wondered whether I should have waited longer. Practised more. Asked for more advice.

Eventually the email arrived.

I had passed!

The wording in the feedback summary I received said that nothing in the panel fell below the required standard. Perhaps that’s British understatement at work. I might have preferred:

“The panel achieved the required standard.”

But a pass is a pass.

And sometimes the real achievement isn’t the distinction itself.

It’s deciding to try. It’s allowing yourself to stop being comfortable and start stretching the limits of what’s possible instead.

You can see my LRPS panel on my newly revamped website: https://kamsinkaneko.com/lrps/

P.S. What this means for this Newsletter

If this newsletter feels unfamiliar to you, that’s understandable.

Some of you subscribed when I was working primarily with writing clients and coaching around self-doubt. Over the past year, photography has moved to the centre of my creative life instead of sitting quietly in the background.

In the months ahead I’ll be writing more about photography, especially the inner journey although as my readership will inevitably shift, I’m open to a change of direction.

Photography, for me, is about attention.

It’s about learning to notice what matters.

It’s about courage.

And increasingly, it’s about what might happen when we stop assuming we’re not ready.

If you’d like to stay for that journey, I’m very glad you’re here. 📷🌿