Words and Photography by Nadine Wilmanns

Questions

“Rather than asking out of curiosity or simply for information, we can learn to ask questions in love.”

(quote from ‘Emily P. Freeman)

Asking meaningful questions can make all the difference in a conversation and can generally be a great habit.

This autumn, I met with a few other photographers at the beautiful Atelier Novea. Part of our group was Shalynn Crawford, who specializes in birth photography. She also photographs babies who die during or after birth. “After such a challenging assignment, I need to take a few days for myself to recover”, she shared. Couples photographer Nina Schulz said that she doesn’t edit in the evenings anymore, but now protects her free time. This was an important reminder for me that it’s important to take care of ourselves if we want to stay in the game for the long run.

Funny enough, on the way back from the meeting, I had my current audiobook on – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (I still can’t believe I’m only listening to this now and not years ago). The author told the story of a goose that was able to lay golden eggs. But the owner was so focused on the eggs and didn’t show any care or patience towards the goose that the goose stopped laying eggs altogether. (In the end, he killed the goose to cut her open and get the eggs out, but of course, there weren’t any – it doesn’t work that way.) We can’t expect to deliver exceptional work that is art and not just basic photography if we don’t take good care of our mental and physical health, and if we don’t take time for processing and recovery.

Meaningful Questions

Secondly, in our conversation, Shalynn asked me whether I write daily (she does and says she’s amazed by the effect it has). What an unusual and meaningful question! In conversations with people we don’t know very well, we tend to ask all sorts of meaningless questions – only to keep the conversation going. Why not ask something truly interesting that not only opens the opportunity to learn something, but also makes the person who is being asked think – and possibly come up with new insights and ideas on their own. Simply because of a question that led to more.

How questions can lead to arrows

Thanks to the idea of Emily P. Freeman from my favourite podcast, The Next Right Thing, I use questions in my journaling. Often, there are things that I want to complain about, but as we all know, complaining leads to nothing good. However, if I phrase it as a question, it may lead to an arrow – this is Emily P. Freeman’s term for a possibility, a hint, or a next step that I could take to help with the unsatisfying situation – simply an arrow in the right direction.

Yesterday, I realized that questions are more valuable than I would have thought, and Shalynn confirmed that. Asking meaningful questions can encourage the other person to come up with their own ideas and solutions that match their personality and experiences. And this, in return, may teach me, the questioner, something too.