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.
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How very true. One of the more interesting comments I’ve ever gotten from coworkers I’ve shown my photos to was that not only did I have some talent, but I was wise enough to know to only show off the very best photos instead of all mediocre ones. :)
When I take pictures, I’ll lean on the shutter and take millions of snaps, but my Flickr ratio is 1 to 10. Occasionally, I’ll remove or change a photo if I don’t like it or I think no one is looking at it, or I have a better shot later on that communicates my point.
I learned this from shooting video, where it is not uncommon to have a 1:5 or 1:10 ratio where so little footage filmed ends up in in the final project. (You can’t know beforehand what is a “good” moment, neither for video or stills.)
Your so right.
Man, I can get so frustrated coming home from a long day, have about 500 to 650 shots, and you get only a couple worth keeping. but if I didn’t “play” so much with my style, then I probably wouldn’t even get one good one. he he. So true on people who post all the shots. LOOK, the train moved 2 inches from the previous spot! lol
I believe it is the Quality of the photo, not the Quanity. Keep the Quanity to yourself.
and yes, Aaron does think my photos suck. LMAO!!
except the ones I take of him…………..