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Learn From the Masters of Photography: Embrace Failure
How can you use failure to drive you forward, rather than hold you back?
“Luck – or perhaps serendipity – plays a big role… But you never know what is going to happen. And what is most exciting is when the utterly unexpected happens, and you manage to be there at the right place at the right time – and push the shutter at the right moment. Most of the time it doesn’t work out that way. Street photography is 99.9% about failure.” – Alex Webb
LEARN FROM THE MASTERS OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Timeless wisdom from the masters of street photography.
Photography as risk taking
Every time you click the shutter, you’re taking a risk. A risk of making a bad photo. A risk of upsetting someone in street photography.
But, the more risks you take, the more likely you are to succeed.
This is an entrepreneurial principle too — don’t be afraid of risk. Rather, see it as an iterative process. Each time you take a small risk, don’t see the feedback as failure. See the feedback as information, that can empower you.
Embrace failure, let failure not be a scary word. Empower yourself by not shrinking from “failure”.
In Silicon Valley, there is a concept of “fail forward”— each time you “fail”, you’re learning, growing, and driving yourself forward.
Ask yourself:
Am I afraid of failure?
If so, what do you really fear?
Do you fear negative social stigma from failure? Or do you fear becoming bankrupt, and dying on the streets homeless and hungry?
Are your fears of failure real, rational, and really that bad?
To take better photos,
Fail More.
Consider, if you’ve taken 1,000 pictures — aren’t you bound to get at least one good picture? You might need to fail 999 tunes before you succeed with one good photo.
So, perhaps the secret is this:
Seek to fail 1,000 times with your photos.
Shitty photo assignment
As an assignment: take 1,000 bad photos — and intentionally try to take really bad photos.
Then if you end up shooting a lot of shit, you’re bound to get a few good ones (Trent Parke).
Fail forward in your photography.
ERIC
EMPOWER YOURSELF in your photography with the book: LEARN FROM THE MASTERS >
HAPTIC INDUSTRIES: Creative Tools For Photographers
