I am here as a model on this account, but I have my own photography account too. I personally love my work on there, but I always want to get better.
How do you rate your own images and do you question yourself all the time, or are you at peace with the photos you produce?
Please don't offer critique, unless asked for.
I like my work, but go through phases of self doubt about the quality of it
I know that I can improve, which is one of the things that keeps me creating images, and I am probably my own worst critic
A number of images I look back on and wonder why I didn’t do some tweaks on the day, and these annoy me the most 🤬
Overall I love some of my work, like a lot of my work but know I can improve
This is an interesting question. But I am glad someone asked it.
Personally I am very happy with my own work and the progress I have made. Ofcourse I want to get better and I look up to a lot of photographers and take their work as an example. There have been times where I did a shoot, came home and opened the images on my pc and I was really disappointed with the results. I still encounter this problem sometimes. My last few shoots I would say I will have 3 good ones and 1 that somehow just don't work. But like I said overall I am very happy with my own progress. Am I anywhere near where I want to be? Heavens no, but as long as I see myself grow as a photographer I am confident that one day I will. :)
I think it's a good thing to always find ways to better yourself. When I notice that my work isn't improving anymore I try to find workshops of photographers I admire to learn something new that might elevate my work to the next level. I have traveled literally to the other side of the world to do a workshop with Peter Coulson for a week. This really helped me a lot on my studio work, but I notice that now I try to find more storytelling in my images. So I will search for a photographer who I think does a great job at that and try to find a workshop to learn this. You need some kind of mentor or teacher to direct you in your photography journey to get where you want to be.
What you could also do is learn from studying the works you absolutely love. I always try to scroll on instagram or whatever and when I stop because a photo draws my attention, I try to dismantle it by looking for the things that made me stop scrolling by seeing that photo. And also try to find out, from what angle was this picture taken, what kind of lighting has been used, from where is the light coming, are there multiple light sources? It's also training your eye and mind to understand photography and light and then apply these things in your next shoot to see if you can replicate it so you know you understand the techniques that were used on the photo that inspired you. Buying photography books of photographers whose work you admire helps a lot with this as well.
That is my approach. I hope it helps you in your photography journey. :)
I like ‘some’ of my work, and some of my work is technically competent but lacks artistic merit. Some is just plain rubbish (which reminds me, I must do another proper cull of my portfolio on here). The thing that keeps me going however is I know I can get better. The constant striving for improvement is every aspect of my work. I doubt I will ever be ‘happy’ with my work, but if I manage to keep making small improvement, I will persevere. .
I am pretty happy with some of the work I produce and definitely feel I have improved since day 1 of my time on purpleport but also know there are things I don’t do well so there is more to learn. I also agree with the points made by John and Damon - it definitely helped me when I started to analyse work I like - photographs and cinematography on films - to work out how I thought images had been created. I find myself doing that all the time now. Privately critiquing poor photos is also helpful to me (I don’t mean rubbishing other peoples work I mean looking at images that don’t appeal to me personally and thinking to my self privately what would I have done to try and get what would be in my opinion a good or more impactful version of that photo - of course some of this is subjective - I might not like a photo but others may love it as it is.
My biggest challenges with my work centre around trying to get some sense of coherence to my portfolio which is all over the place and has no sense of unifying style. Sort of related to that is trying to create something more original but in my style. Partly because of the approach mentioned in the previous paragraphs I feel too much of my inspiration comes from visual works and I end up replicating imagery or ideas. perhaps I am ready to move on to create art based on inspiration from other media and that might create something more interesting? I have found this to be challenging when you are trying to work with models though - I find it much easier to convey my ideas by showing models pictures - but maybe I should ask for a pose that fits this piece or music, or this poem…… how do others try to bring different media into their workflows to improve their work?
If I've shared them anywhere, then I'm happy with them.
No-one ever sees images that I'm not 100% happy with.
I'm probably the worst self-judge. I rate my images on how close they are to what I had planned, in technical terms.
I only really started model photography to practice direction, and to add another facet to the technical work I was used to.
Do I like my images...? Sometimes, but mostly I end up with a list of things to do slightly differently next time.
As a hobby photographer, yes, I love my photography. It’s not in any way technically excellent, but its enough for me, which is all that matters for me. if I didn’t love it as a hobby, I wouldn’t do it.
I do love my own photography, but most importantly I do "Enjoy" photography in general. Taking photos and looking at others work.
I particularly enjoy wildlife photography the most but for some personal circumstances I started modelling photography about 10 years ago and I am enjoying every minute.
There is always room for improvement like in other areas of our life. The beauty for me is the journey.
If I did not like my images, I would not share them.
I think we are all very critical of our own work. The problem comes when you think you are brilliant and your work is the best all the time because people blow smoke in places it shouldn't be and you believe it
Always strive to improve and be better and improve, whether that be lighting, composition, ideas, editing etc.
Its a constant learning curve
And try to be different, step outside your comfort zones.
After moving to videography yes, more so the journey getting to the end result. Long challenging days often sat waiting on weather or pandering to the needs of a DP on specific looks/themes/scenes has us often way out of our comfort zone, but tremendously enjoyable.
Not picked up a stills camera in over a year……. Note to self: dust it off charge it up and book a shoot.
I enjoy the hobby, I'm really happy with some of what I've done, not so much some of it, which is only to be expected no matter what one does in life. PP imagery is a rather specific and limited in type/content. The limitations in execution restrict freedom to do more and expand skill set and expression to a level I'd like to achieve.
If I am honest very few I love but mostly I like definitely not love and only hope that I can improve , I think sometimes I nearly get what I aimed for but not quite the journey is long but the destination will be worth it.
