oh no, that's weird
ah, that's bright
so yeah, photography
Photography never gets easy
In fact, it gets harder and harder the more you do it, and the better you get at it
It’s almost like a competition against your past self, and this can lead to frustration and burnout
I’ve definitely been there
But this is also something we can overcome
Let's see how
I was thinking about this as I’m going through the
photos I’ve made so far during this road trip across Norway
You see, when I first got to this country just a few weeks ago
every photograph I was taking, was pretty much the best photograph I had ever made in Norway
because I’d never been here before
This is similar, kind of, to what they call “beginner gains” in weightlifting
but it happens in pretty much every practice that you can think of
It is at the beginning,
when we are learning something for the first time, that we progress the most
compared to where we were before, at least
and it really feels that way
gradually, though, to get better at whatever we are doing, we will have
to invest exponentially more time and more effort
the law of diminishing returns also applies here
when we are new to photography, it’s easy to make your “best image yet”
because you don’t have that many, anyway
of course, over time, as you keep making more images,
and as you keep getting better at doing that
the bar keeps getting higher and higher
making a new “best photograph ever” gets harder and harder
because now, you are competing against yourself
your past self, who spent months, or even years, to get the images they got
Life can get in the way as well
We might not have as much time now as we once used to have to do photography,
to travel, to do new things
and the little time we spend doing it now doesn’t yield good results
at least compared to what we had done before
even worse, we become more selective as time goes on
usually, we tend to pick the locations and the conditions
that have worked well for us in the past
we stop experimenting because it doesn’t produce any tangible results
at least not as good as the images we’ve already made
you can see where this is going
we get frustrated, disappointed, photography loses its magic
we feel like whatever we had before, we lost it, we don’t have it anymore
this is burnout
So, how can we prevent this from happening?
and if it happens, how can we fix it?
Well, first, we should realize... we have to understand
that this happening is actually a good thing
we have trouble creating our best work yet, because our past work is getting better
understand that the images that we make but don’t like today
would probably have been our best work just a few years ago
You see, running faster is much harder when you are already in shape and running fast
It’d be very easy for most of us to get 10% better at basketball
but it’d be almost impossible for someone like Lebron
No, I’m not suggesting that we should consider ourselves the Lebron James of photography
but to remember to reflect on what you’ve done over the years,
all the effort and passion you put into photography
how much joy it’s brought you, how many good memories were made
and of course, the beautiful photographs you made along the way
recently, I've found that it really helps to have a log of your photographs
this year, I started to put together contact sheets of all the pictures I take
just so I can reflect on my work a few years down the road, to see where I’m coming from
and to realize about all the hard work and time spent doing photography
and all the incredible moments I got to live because of it
by the way, I share my contact sheets over on my Patreon page
where I also showed how I make them, just in case you want to make them yourself
so if you want to support my work that way, that's a little nice perk that you can find there
you'll find the link in the description down below
also in the description, you'll find a massive shout out
please check out the work of my patrons because they have absolutely beautiful work
the main problem here is that we are focusing too much on the output of our efforts
the images we make and how good they are compared to our past work
this is important, no doubt,
but there’s no photography career for those who do not love the process
the way is paved with a lot of obstacles and challenges
and only those photographers who enjoy facing those problems will eventually overcome them
so, ask yourself: do you love getting out there and exploring and exposing yourself to new things
enough to do it even when that means no good photographs will be made?
If you enjoy doing this even when you come back empty handed
then there’s no way you won’t eventually make your new “best image yet”
it’s just a matter of time!
This is the key to building a photography career
You might be a natural, you might see things others just don’t see
but if you get burned out after a few months, your work will never be as good as it could have been
Longevity in photography is very,
very important when it comes to building a great collection of images
the longer you do it, the better you are going to be
this is something that takes years, if not a lifetime
it’s not a matter of age, though,
it doesn’t really matter when you get started with photography
what matters is that however many years we have left on this planet
we keep doing it, as often as we can,
loving the process so we are still motivated to do it again the next day
and remember to live an interesting life, of course
because if we do that, photography will come to us naturally, we don’t have to chase it
Also, this might be different for you, but for me, photography is about momentum
the more I do it, the more I want to do it
if I go several days without picking up my camera, I have a much harder time getting out
if this sounds familiar, you might just need a little spark to get you started
maybe this video will do that
if not, try going somewhere new, it doesn’t have to be thousands of miles away
just go to a different part of town you seldom go to
or go for a walk and take a path you never take
go out at night, or early in the morning
get inspired by the work of others,
buy a photography book, or just watch more YouTube videos
and try to replicate the work you like yourself
and yes, why not, buy new gear
especially a new lens, a focal length you’ve never used before
that should give you a new perspective
Anyway, the main point here is that photography should bring joy to your life
it should make your days better
it shouldn't be a source of frustration
if we understand that we are not creating our best
photograph every few weeks because our past work is already pretty good
if we remember to enjoy the process, to love what we photograph, then we’ll be on the right path
photography will most of the time be a source of joy and delight
of course, I’d love to hear from you, let me know what you think about this.
Thank you so much for watching, and see you in the next one!