Finding Material: Where Waves End
I shot this a couple weeks ago while up in Tacoma with a friend. He has been working in the area for over a year and had wandered past the front side of the Russell Building every day. He assumed that it was just a rectangular “standard” building. Then we wandered around back and discovered an interesting wave shape on the back side of the building which makes an interesting photo. Look around and check out the sides of things you haven’t explored.
Most of Your Photos Suck
Most of your photos suck. Most of my photos suck too.
John Nack on Adobe points out that most of everyone’s photos suck. The reality is that regardless of whether you shoot digital or film, you’ll create a lot more “garbage” photos than ones which are truly outstanding. It’s a reality of photography that needs to be accepted.
Don’t believe me? Upload all of your pictures to Flickr and look at the stats.
We learn from experience. The “garbage” photos are learning tools and shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as wasted shots.
From the fact that most of your photos suck, it should follow that when deciding which work to publish and show off, only publicize your best work. Don’t make folks wade through a bunch of mediocre photos; show them the money shot. I have a friend who routinely goes out and shoots 50-70 photos in a day, then comes home and uploads and shares 50-75% of those. His perceived photography strength would go up if instead of showing 40 average photos, he cut it down and only showed the 5 or 10 best shots (if that many).
Your photos suck. Mine do too. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
