I borrowed the flow chart above from a post I saw on social media because I thought it just about sums up photography, if not everything else we do in life. Do we need to keep practising? I think the answer to that question for me is pretty much always yes. Do you ever look back at old photographs that you have taken, some of your all time favourites of the day and perhaps feel a little disappointed. I know I do, but isn’t that how it should be? If we keep practising and keep discovering new techniques then hopefully our photography will get better, I know that’s my aim and so, in a way, I’m quite pleased that I’m disappointed when I look back. It means that at least in my eyes I’m improving at what I’m doing.
I say “In my eyes I’m improving” because not everyone will see your images the same way as you do. It’s actually possible that some people won’t even like your images. I know that’s hard to accept but have you ever looked at an image that someone has shown somewhere and wondered why they were showing it. Think about it, the answer is more likely to be that they thought is was good rather than thinking it was an absolute load of rubbish and that is something I always try to keep in mind when I look at images, more often than not they are being shown because the person showing them likes them. A slight digression perhaps but something I do feel quite strongly about, just because we don’t like something it doesn’t make it bad.
At the beginning you might of noticed that I said that for me the answer was pretty much always yes, you need to keep practicing but for others it might not be so important and that’s fine but I do think there is some truth in the old saying “Practice makes perfect”. Are any of us perfect? Well that’s a whole new topic!
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