Posts
Ever talk yourself out of something by convincing yourself beforehand that
a) it's a dumb idea
b) it won't work
c) others have done it better
d) my camera equipment isn't good enough
e) there's too (much/little) (sun/wind/cloud/etc.) for good photography
f) not enough time
g) I've been shooting crap lately so this will be crap too.
h) I've tried my best and it just isn't good enough.
or any number of other negative self talk messages.
Arguably negative self talk like this is marginally better than the opposite - today I'm going to shoot a masterpiece, a photograph to transcend all others I have ever shot.
On the one hand you set yourself up to fail or not bother, on the other you set standards so high and unrealistic that meeting the standard is unlikely in extreme.
Perhaps more realistic thinking somewhere between might be best. Even better is to go out with the attitude that 'I'll make the best of what I find', I may not make a masterpiece, but I know I won't if I don't go out and shoot.
Here's some observations:
1) Most photographers get better with time - I have a nice book of Ansel's early mountain work - but frankly, it would never have seen the light of day if he hadn't already been famous - trust me - he got better with time.
2) The only way to not make progress is to keep screwing up the same old way - so get creative - find some new ways to screw up (and more to the point - stop screwing up the old ways).
3) Most photographers fail for lack of effort or skill, not talent. At workshops, most of the prints fail for pretty basic reasons - technical glitches, poor printing, weak composition - it's unusual for them to fail because the photographer had a dumb idea or couldn't find anything interesting to photograph. This means that any lack of perceived success on your part is overwhelmingly likely to be from fairly simple errors of insufficiency of skills, which with a bit of work could be overcome.
4) There are more photographs out there waiting to be taken than you have time to shoot - lack of something to photograph is really just laziness or pessimism or discouragement - just get out there.
5) failure to find anything worth shooting is fairly common, but often it's because we have preconceived ideas of what we are looking for - and on being there at the wrong time or under the wrong conditions to find that, we can't change gears and look at what is there. If it's February in Inuvik, perhaps wild flower photography isn't your ideal objective. On the other hand, snow drifts, ice crystals, northern lights, and day long low sun might be the order of the day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Very true George. I have fallen into some of these traps in the past. I find that I am the most successful on my shoots when I do not go out with a preconceived idea of what I will come back with. I think the surprise is part of the fun.
Nice piece, today. Thinking about how to contend with the inevitable frustrations and negative feelings is very important. It is common to all arts. When you do manage to do something really excellent you both feel good about it and recognize how much of what you do doesn't meet that standard. You cannot change this fact, but you can learn to regard it in a more positive way.
In your post you included: "Arguably negative self talk like this is marginally better than the opposite - today I'm going to shoot a masterpiece, a photograph to transcend all others I have ever shot."
Here I disagree a bit. While it is dangerous to become too self-absorbed and pig-headed about ones own perceived brilliance, I think that almost every time one picks up the camera one must believe that it is possible to create that transcendent photo. Of course, most of the time you won't, but it is the belief that this is possible that keeps us going. :-)
Dan
I think Dan and I are on the same page - it's one thing to expect to create a masterpiece and to be correspondingly frustrated when you don't meet that goal, I definitely agree we should hope to create wonderful photographs every time we shoot. Archers aim for the bulls eye every single time - they don't necessarily expect to hit it every time however. If every time an archer didn't hit the bulls eye he got frustrated, broke his bow across his knee, went out and got drunk and took up stamp collecting instead, well you get my point.
I think some photographers confuse expectation and aiming - Dan says aim, and by inference, hope to hit the bulls eye, but with realistic expectations that this isn't going to happen every time and to not get frustrated when it doesn't. Setting yourself up to fail though is just plain dumb!
Post a Comment