Be honest- Do you love your own photography?

Personally, for me, its evolved.

Growing up I was always creatively minded, but not creatively skilled - I mean I couldn't draw (apart from stick people), didn't have the patience to learn a musical instrument well enough, couldn't sing and art was best drawn by following numbers 🤣. So when I could, in the last year of senior school, I joined the photographic club and borrowed my dad's camera—film in those days with darkroom. The smell of the processing had me hooked.

Then I stopped to follow life's given pattern. When my divorce happened some 30 years later, I picked up a digital camera and took some studio lessons from Steve Cheshire and Julian Kilsby, who both fired my passion again and then went out on my own and enjoyed every minute of being creative. Every couple of years I look back on previous images and think 'no' / 'Why did I do that' or with improved skills over time ' that edit is rubbish'. I also wonder why I shot in jpeg for the first few years. I therefore don't love now what I previously loved when I took it.

I still love the creativity but have used my photography over the last few years to create sets to sell on Bentbox. Initially, it was only one set from a shoot and creativity still occurred, but of late I tend to image the whole shoot to provide sets for potential Bentbox sales. I have therefore thought, at times, that I am imaging for others rather than myself and don't feed the creativity buzz I still have.

I still love the interaction and teamwork involved in a shoot but do I feel I am meeting 'potential client/purchaser' needs rather than my own - probably yes. However, doing the sets covers my outlay to pick up a camera and continue this hobby.

I am, however still very proud of some images I have taken previously and will always love them.

Edited by paul thomas

Edited by paul thomas

To love your photography you have to be your harshest critic. That way you can learn and the love the images you create. There are many photographers who don't really even like their images, as they are careless, don't think about composition, or edit to make the images look good. More in love with showing everyone they can take photos of boobs and bits.

Mostly, yes. I’m always trying to produce something different to what I’ve done before, which means trying new lighting setups, finding new locations, working with different models and shooting different styles. I wouldn’t be happy shooting the same style in front of the same old backdrop all the time (not a criticism of those who are). This will inevitably lead to occasional (mostly small) failures when the shoot doesn’t live up to expectations for any reason, but it’s rare to walk away with nothing I’m happy with and nothing learned and I enjoy the constant challenge. It helps also that working with models represents probably less than 10% of what I shoot overall so I can take a break from it for a few months, as I am now, shoot something completely different and come back refreshed, hopefully with new ideas, rather than become stressed on a treadmill of my own making.

Stu H

That should be the goal with everyone

Al W

Quote: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.

A good exercise, I say

Bob @ Fatbloke

It certainly is and should be a journey, with every shoot

Barney57 👍🏽

Zara_Lee

Do you feel more free to model, when on location? I find that I prefer being on location, even if it's indoors in a location that's not a studio.

I think I can take a decent image. And usually with the right collaborators I can do that reasonably consistently. But that’s within the narrow confines of people photography.

Outside of that I’m in a much more hit and miss area of success.

I’m also a lazy editor and really don’t enjoy sitting in Photoshop so perhaps more images would be better if I could bring myself to dive deeper.

As a reminder to myself I have produced good work I’ve started making Blurb photo books so there is a more physical element to my approach to art.

Gothic Image 👍🏽

FabioRoso

Quote:

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

My feelings also.

RAWing Waves

Quote:

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.

Wise words indeed.

Unfocussed Mike

Quote:

No. But… *thinks more about why, really*

Hmm ... A really good question to ask ourselves.

I'm very much a fan of Fashion photography like: Norman Parkinson, Tim Walker, Avedon, Penn, Lindbergh. I look at what they are achieving and try to ask the same question to myself, without trying to shoot exactly like them, of which I couldn't possibly do.

Honestly, I feel like I have so much potential. I have a lot of ideas that I’m trying to do but due to limited time and resources it has been difficult to shoot more. I have a few shots that I like so far but I know that I could do so much better

10 years on Purpleport and came from a landscape photography background like most newbie’s. I have always enjoyed the process of doing my shoots and largely I do like what I produce, hence just a minimum of images on my page.

I’ve seen a growth in my photography and I strive to improve.