The first - The Beginning Stage
If you still can remember how you first discovered photography in the old days, you probably enjoyed the experiences of this stage. At this stage, all things are new to us, from composition, camera operations, to what is a good picture and what is not. We move on so quickly that we feel great and almost want to be a professional photographer because we think we can! After mastering a lot of technical skills, we get great shots in almost every trip. In simple words, you capture mountains like mountains, that is, record the scene like the real thing. People around you start to give you good comments such as "nice photograph, you must have a good camera". Thank you very much! If you work hard, you might now come up with a portfolio with reasonably quality - in your opinion. What is next? You have done most subjects like mountains, sunset, sunrise, waterfalls, deserts, coastal scenes or whatever are your photographic area of interests. You start to realise that at some stage your photos appear to be repeating themselves. All sort of combinations have been tried. To you, creative engineering does not work anymore. Guess what? You have just entered the second stage, the Bogging Stage.

The second - The Bogging Stage
I can imagine and feel your pain if you are here now. It is such a boring stage that you are so disappointed that photography is mainly for recording. What is the challenge? No more satisfaction. Many people get stuck here for quite a long time and sometimes stay forever. With the same mountain analogy, the captured mountains do not like mountains. Of course, we are talking about a conceptual thing here. What I really mean is that you have failed to capture the thing you want to capture. To be exact, the shot does not come up as what you want it to be. You are really bogged. Your physical view and technical knowledge just can not bring you forward to enter the artistic world. This is the hardest part in photography and some ordinary people would probably give up and depart because they realise that this is no longer their game. To those who would like to stay, they might finally get through if they could really re-learn the whole thing by getting rid of the concept of recording. Yes you need imagination, an artistic mind and all sorts of things that could help you to re-learn until that day comes... one day when you wake up and you see things differently. In the same mountain analogy, you make water look like mountains if you like. You have just entered the next stage, the Heaven Stage.

The third - The Heaven Stage
You went to paradise and then dived deep into hell. Finally you are now in "heaven". To you, every scene is a picture. Your mind has been opened once again. Almost no boundary, your creative mind lit up your fire again. You really feel you have moved up to another level. Congratulations if you are here. Finally if you are really (and truly) a super master photographer (artist), these stages are no longer meaningful because there is no more stage. Therefore the next stage is called "No-Stage".

The fourth - The No-Stage
It is really hard to imagine what this stage is because you are no longer bounded by anything. Just use your imagination. Finally you might realise that the destination is actually the starting point.