The answer lies in the selective process, the curation. What they ultimately choose to show. It is a common misconception to believe that great photographers take more qualitative pictures than someone who's simply decent. While it sounds true, the reality will often be that great photographers adhere to a strenuous selection process of their own choosing.
One of the most important skills to cultivate isn’t just mastering your camera or understanding lighting. It's something far more subtle but crucial to success: the ability to be ruthlessly selective about the work you edit and ultimately decide to share. If you consider the pictures you take over the course of a shoot, an assignment, or out of your daily personal production, it’s tempting to feel attached to many of these images. Yet not every photo deserves to see the light of day.
You'll become a much better photographer by learning how to sift through the endless images and confidently pick out the few that are truly above the crop. For this, you need to become ruthless, even callous, about your own work. It’s not about liking your shots; it’s about identifying the ones that genuinely stand out and demonstrate the best of your ability. This being said, culling can be a tough and often uncomfortable process. You may discard photos that were difficult to capture or hold a personal significance —yet this is the very act that separates the average from the outstanding.
Getting into this state of mind will not only have immediate positive consequences, but you'll also refine some important skills on the long term: being selective with what you show forces you to develop a sharper eye for quality. It pushes you to be more critical, which ultimately helps you improve as a photographer. When you only present your best work, you elevate your portfolio and make a stronger impact on your audience. Think about it — people are far more likely to remember a handful of stunning images than a gallery filled with dozens of decent ones that would ultimately allow your better images to be forgotten in a sea of mediocrity.
Learning to curate your own work is a discipline that every photographer, regardless of experience, should practice. It’s not just a matter of taste; it’s a matter of growth. By consistently cutting out mediocrity, you are setting yourself on the course for the perpetual honing of your skills. This process can be compared to some martial arts, where the pursuit of perfection is both the goal and the path. In Kendo, (which I’ve been practicing for over fifteen years) true mastery isn't about achieving an unattainable perfection —it's about relentlessly pursuing it, refining technique with each practice, knowing that the journey itself is what leads to progress.
Perfectionism, when carefully harnessed, is a powerful trait. It drives you to constantly push the boundaries of your creativity and technical skill, fostering a mindset that demands excellence in every shot you take and every photo you share. Just like a martial artist strives to perfect each movement with precision and focus, a photographer should aim to perfect their craft through the art of curation, editing, and presentation. This practice isn’t about perfection in a literal sense but about the pursuit of it, which inevitably sharpens your eye and elevates your work.
However, perfectionism is a double-edged sword. Left unchecked, it can lead to frustration, creative paralysis, and burnout. The quest for excellence can sometimes blind you to the beauty in imperfections or make you overly critical of your progress. But when perfectionism is balanced with self-compassion and patience, it becomes a tool for refinement rather than self-doubt. It follows the principle of "perfect practice makes perfect." The difference between this and the more commonly heard "practice makes perfect" is crucial. Practice alone doesn’t lead to excellence; mindless repetition of flawed techniques only reinforces bad habits. It’s the quality of your practice, your attention to detail, and your willingness to continually assess and improve that makes the difference.
But there's another powerful tool that can help you refine the way you look: revisiting your photo library at a later date. As time passes, your skills evolve, your eye sharpens, and you gain a deeper understanding of what makes a photo great. When you return to your old work with this fresh perspective, you'll often find hidden gems that you may have overlooked in the past.
With the passage of time, emotions tied to the original shoot fade, and you can assess your photos with more objectivity. What you once considered your best might not hold up to the standards you’ve developed, and that’s a good thing —it means you’re progressing— however you might also notice the beauty in subtle details that your earlier self missed, or perhaps a composition that you once dismissed now feels more striking after developing a more nuanced appreciation for lighting, framing, or storytelling. Either way, this practice of delving into you archives allows you to measure your growth. This reflection can be motivating, reminding you of how far you’ve come while wondering (or planning) what you're going towards in the future.
Learning to cull is the deliberate pursuit of perfection, knowing you may never reach it but understanding that embarking on the journey itself is what will make you improve. Learning to cull also will also have a backward effect: you'll begin approaching each shoot with more intention; you will be more demanding of yourself as you shoot and anticipate the reviewing of your work and with practice, you will start knowing which 2-3 images of a shoot will require your attention while you'll almost immediately forget about the hundreds of others also sitting on your card.
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