To grow as a photographer is to constantly shoot more, get more feedback on your photos (arsbeta.com), and to integrate the feedback of yourself and others into your future images.
What does evolution in photography look like?
To me it is simple:
If you can see your growth/change as a photographer/visual-artist year-over-year, you’re evolving.
This is why consistency is bad for us artists; a 100% consistent artist is someone who isn’t changing or evolving!
This means in your photography,
- Experiment with new shooting techniques, locations, and places.
- Change up your aesthetic style and processing, and perhaps experiment with different focal lengths (24mm, 28mm, 35mm)
- Experiment between color and monochrome
- Travel to experience new cultures, try new foods, and find new sources of inspiration in different art museums and exhibitions. For example Washington DC and their National Portrait Gallery is one of my newest and favorite museums and sources for visual inspiration.
How to get feedback on your photos
Upload your photos to arsbeta.com to get feedback on your photos, and use this as an opportunity to also provide feedback to other photographers.
Furthermore I find that by giving other photographers feedback and critique, I actually improve my own visual intelligence and my own ability to be more discerning toward my own images. This is a great “win-win” scenario!
Real life critique
If I want in-person feedback on my photos, the questions I will often ask others when showing them my photos:
- Which photos should I ditch?
- Which photos are your favorites and why?
- Help me kill my babies; please be brutally honest with me.
The difficulty is most people don’t want to “hurt your feelings” and thus they generally will censor themselves. But once you give them the permission to be brutally honest, you will gain a deeper insight about your images.
Can I grow and evolve as a photographer without getting feedback from others?
I believe you can evolve as a photographer independently from the feedback of others, as long as you can discover strong self-motivation to continually create new images. I know for myself the best thing I’ve ever done in my photography is deleting my Instagram, and focusing on making photos that bring me joy!
For myself, allowing myself to shoot anything and everything has been beneficial because:
- I shoot more, and have more fun while shooting
- I shoot more playfully, and I experiment more with my compositions and approach
- I’m naturally evolving as I shoot more, and as I strive to make photos to please myself (and I’m the most exacting judge of myself and my own photos).
Evolution is the goal.
When organisms evolve, it is difficult to determine which adaptations are “good” and which are “bad/un-useful”. But for myself, all evolution is good.
Evolution is change, and change is good.
Evolution makes us stronger, makes us more interesting (and interested), and gives us the vigor and motivation to keep living and making!
There is no final destination or state as a photographer; simply never stop creating!
ERIC
