It’s one of the most familiar stories that I hear: “You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to take this photo. I captured it on the hardest hike of my life, but it was absolutely worth the effort.” And then the photo – though rarely a complete failure – just isn’t up to the standard of the photographer’s other work. Sometimes, it seems, photographers confuse a photo that was difficult to capture with one that truly succeeds.
Sometimes, the Easiest Photos Work Well
The photos above have one thing in common: They were all very easy to capture.
I didn’t have to wake up early for any of these shots. I didn’t have to hike long distances or endure harsh weather conditions. Instead, I simply showed up at the right spot, walked a few minutes at most, and took a photo. But the key is that no one would ever know it. Unless you’ve been to these locations, there is no way to figure out where I took the photo – whether from the side of the road or from the farthest reaches of an exhausting, multi-day trek.
A beautiful photo from your backyard is still a beautiful photo. A mediocre image that took years of planning and effort to capture is, at the end of the day, mediocre. This is not to say such a photo cannot be meaningful to you, which is itself an important goal. But you also can’t expect your memory of a scene to carry over to people who view it.
I’m a firm believer that good photos resonate with viewers because of emotion, and there is an argument that hard-to-capture images are more likely to have this elusive quality. The photographer poured all their effort into capturing the image; some of that may shine through. Maybe the photo shows something unique and beautiful, or it captures a well-known scene in a new and exciting way.
However, for better or worse, viewers won’t pick up on those emotions automatically. Although a hard-to-take image may have a head start in certain cases, you still need to showcase the scene skillfully if you want a good image.
Other Times, the Trickiest Photos Aren’t As Good
Like most photographers, I’ve dealt with tough conditions, long hikes, sore feet, and exhaustion in the field, typically while carrying a full camera kit on my back. Early on, I got into a mindset that I needed to bring back something good in order to make crazy hikes like this worthwhile.
On the face of things, it’s a good idea to take good photos whenever you can. The problem occurs when you feel guilty not capturing what you’re after. You might end up displaying an image that – any other day – wouldn’t be up to your standards.
I’ve certainly done this before. I can think of a number of times where I put a lot of effort into capturing a photo, and I displayed the result for a while even though it wasn’t particularly good. Over the long run, little mistakes like this add up. It can be disappointing to see a photographer whose newest work isn’t as strong as their older galleries, whether on their personal website or social media.
Take a look at the two photos below. They’re not awful, but they’re far from standouts in my opinion. Still, I displayed both of these on my website for a long time after taking them – indeed, for almost a year after the fact:
These photos are from two separate hikes that, even several years later, stand among the most challenging I’ve ever done. But that has no bearing on the quality of the photos. In truth, I didn’t get any keepers from the first hike, and only one from the second. Sometimes, that’s just how things happen, and there’s nothing wrong with it. My mistake was to put these images on my website anyway because the backstory had elevated them in my eyes.
Conclusion
Many photographers come back from amazing experiences in the field, and they can’t help but publish some of their newest photos as soon as possible. In many cases, too, there’s nothing wrong with this approach; your first attempts at sorting through your best photos will be pretty accurate, and you typically won’t let the backstory of a photo get in the way of things.
But everyone slips up on occasion. Inevitably, even if you’re careful, you’ll end up publishing a photo that you later realize isn’t all that good. Even if your experience capturing the photo was life-changing, that doesn’t mean your viewers will feel the same way. In the field, you need to compose your photo in a way that makes them feel the same way.
A photo’s backstory is a rosy filter that only you can see. Other viewers will look only at the image in front of them, while you’ll be reliving one of the most exhilarating sunsets or exhausting climbs of your life. The danger is that you start to rank your photos in order of difficulty, not in order of quality. Although the two sometimes overlap, they often are entirely unrelated.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with having a “favorite photo” that you care about solely because of the story behind it. Some of my most important photos are snapshots that bring back memories of people or places that matter to me.
But for portfolio-oriented photographs, especially if you are trying to attract clients, it’s important to keep your standards high. Ask yourself if anything could be clouding your judgement, and, if you aren’t sure whether one of your photos stands alone successfully, consider waiting a few weeks for the memory of it to wear off a bit. Is the photo actually amazing, or do you simply want to feel that your hard work has paid off?
It’s not easy to separate the image from your memory of taking it. Still, the first step is easy: just be aware, in the abstract, that the story behind a hard-to-capture image can change how it appears to you. By recognizing this, you lower your chances of publishing photos below your usual standards.
Good article. Another trap is that because it was hard work getting there, I was patient waiting for the right moment, and I took a lot of photos, I am going pick the best, when maybe none of them are worth showing.
This is an interesting conversation and I tend to tag onto the comments of Cristina. I understand the criticism of those who believe the only great photo is the one straight out of the camera. And, in the days of film, we spent hours making sure that’s what we had — talk about the “effort” overcoming the objective. I believe a good artist can use all the tools available to bring an image to the vision we had when we captured the data. Anyone can replicate a scene; to create an image that is the essence of our vision is something else altogether. If I have enough data and the skill and tools to bring it to life, that’s what I’ll do. I wish my life permitted me the time to wait for that special moment, or to go where the inspiration is endless; some of us have to create the inspiration or bring an image to life in a more controlled environment. It doesn’t mean the art is less genuine, it’s just different. As photographers and artists, we are lucky to have the tools that bring out the best in our creativity.
Thanks for the excellent article, Spencer… it’s definitely thought provoking !!
I completely agree with the original statement that effort != quality. I am more reluctant to agree with the corollary in discussion posts that spontaneity == good shot.
What I like most on Spencer’s posts and work is the rational thinking about composition and technique.
Thank you, Tibor! I find that spontaneity frequently relates to emotion: Your first look at an amazing scene will naturally draw you to certain elements, and those elements often capture the mood of the scene very well. However, that’s not enough for a good photo.
Instead, by refining your initial images of a scene and really trying to pin down the most emotive elements in it, you can make later photos – though less spontaneous – just as emotional, and also more refined. I think my thoughts are more in line with yours on this topic. Spontaneity is not to be avoided, but it also isn’t the end-all-be-all for capturing meaningful work.
Reminds me of a time I was photographing an African Hoopoe at the nest. I sat in a makeshift hide, hunched up, in boiling heat and covered with sweat bees (there was plenty of sweat to feast on) for 2 hours. I couldn’t move or brush them off for fear of being stung. i waited and I waited and eventually the hoopoe returned to feed her young and I got my shots. I was elated, victorious, overjoyed. I got them home. I thought they were great.
Three months later I deleted them all. Pure self delusion.
I hear what you’re saying and would underscore your choice.
An image is strong or not, on it’s own. Backstory has zero influence to the viewer.
I agree a mediocre image may be of great value to us, for the experience of a place, a critter, or people – but that doesn’t magically turn it into a strong portfolio piece.
And, not in response to Betty’s comments, but to another. Editing is not the cure for the common shot – not if your intent is to capture well in the camera and have as many pixels as possible available for a large print. Get it right to begin with, and have the integrity to recognize when you didn’t and move on. Be that much more motivated the next time. Every time in the field is a time to learn from, so the next time is better. Learn from each poorly taken capture and do what you can to improve the elements you can. And when you can’t – learn to not take the shot to begin with. That way, it never is a temptation to try to make a mediocre shot something it is not.
Brilliant story, Betty! More interesting than the photos behind it. Which brings back Joachim’s interesting point earlier, that maybe we just aren’t telling the story with the right tools sometimes. I’d rather see a video or hear a podcast about a birdwatcher who waits for two miserable hours to see something unusual. Whereas I probably wouldn’t give the photos a second look, at least the way you describe them.
That’s what photography has become. Its not about what it took to take the picture. The journey, what the photographer felt before composing and taking the photograph. Instead its about being behind a computer on photoshop all day instead of outside taking pictures.
JP, I’d rather spend a day in an amazing location without a camera than a day creating Photoshop composites from old work. I’d even argue that the first scenario is more “photography” as I want to practice it than the second, despite taking no photos at all.
I fully agree with the premise, but the good news for less-than-perfect shots is that they have invented photo editing software. When you are unhappy with the picture, but the memory is important to you, you go on your computer and see what you can do. The two shots that you posted as negative example are poorly framed, but you can fix it in two minutes with a bit of cropping. If you took the shots RAW, you could actually get several great pictures out of those two shots; you can also get some good backgrounds for future Photoshoppings. Once you do the croppings and enlargements, you will probably need to adjust the exposure and highlights for the respective section, but Photoshop allows you to do that as well. Usually, what one calls a bad shot is just a shot that needs additional work. If you took dozens of good ones on the same occasion, you delete the less impressive ones; but if the poor one is all you have, you just work on it – before you post it to your website, that is.
Cristina, this is a very interesting comment, thanks for posting it. Allthough I have no doubt that it will resonate with many photographers today – and I absolutely don’t look down on photographers who practice the methods you describe – that’s just not the route I prefer to take with my photography at this point.
To me, part of the emotion is lost when I combine images from different locations and different days. I’ll emphasize that to me only refers to my own images, when I’m the one looking at them. High-quality composite still strike me as excellent photos, and I doubt I’m even able to tell that most of them are composites. Who knows how many top landscape photos today are Photoshop-heavy – certainly a large proportion of them.
I have nothing against working with a RAW photo to improve it as much as possible. But for me, there’s a point where the best route is just to cut my losses and try to learn how to improve my work next time around.
Some of my best photos were ones I took on a whim, not sought out someplace.
Eric, no doubt. No matter how carefully we may want to plan things, there is always going to be a lot of spontaneity in photography. Of course, luck and preparedness go hand in hand.
When the “taking of” story is better than the result, it’s still a good story :) Maybe we photographers should also learn storytelling, but I admit: After two or three of these stories I virtually close my ears for listening to more of them.
It’s very true, Spencer. All what you said is relevant. Maybe there’s also a portion of self protection we should think about. Normally we know when a picture isn’t up to our standards. By showing it anyway, we face the risk of getting disappointing comments adding to the already felt disappointment. So it becomes sort of a punishment to ourselves. There’s always something good to see, if it’s not the resulting picture, it’s still the healthy hike, meeting people, eating a good meal somewhere. By taking the importance of “a great result” away, we go lighter.
Good points, Joachim, thanks for adding this. I’ve starting to do some video work recently, and I’m beginning to see which cases lead to compelling footage even when still images are not very interesting. It’s another type of storytelling, no less demanding on the photographer’s creativity I’d say, although the specific skills required are certainly different.
To your second point, there are very few times I truly regret going out with a camera, regardless of the photos I brought back. Aside from the memories themselves – which are more important than photos really – there’s almost always some takeaway directly related to photography. For example, the second image in the “Other Times” section is from a tricky hike in Iceland, of which I only did part that year. A few years later, I did an extended version of the same hike – a trip that would have gone much worse without the knowledge I gained the first time. And some of my favorite photos are from the more recent attempt!
Hi Spencer, I have found that my very best shots, the ones that take my breath away, happened completely spontaneously with no planning whatsoever, and totally unexpectedly. I always try to carefully compose, but sometimes one acts on auto pilot, so to speak, and doesn’t even very carefully regard settings. Some of my best work has come in that way. I think that some of the fun of a shoot comes from not knowing what you’ve got until you look at it later, and suddenly you see ‘the one’ that makes you feel terrific. This tells me that there is some quality inside of us that we don’t control, that interacts with the camera and sometimes takes over from our more conscious selves. In that space is when I believe that greatness comes to us. Of course no one can be sure….
Like you I find that waiting to view my photos for a few days or a week is a big help. I didn’t even realize I was doing that until long after I was. Then when I read that there were other people who do the same thing, I was surprised. But I think it is a really good technique to follow.
I also think that our standards get higher the longer we are doing this, as our abilities grow with time and experience. Lately I’ve been cleaning out all my duds and pictures I just don’t like anymore. I am amazed at how many there are. Doing this is a worthwhile use of time (I feel) as we become more aware of what we consider quality work. We also get to see how much better we’ve become with time. My next project will be to clean up my website, leaving only my best work for public view. Photography really is all about growth. Thanks for an article that points this out!
Thank you for sharing your experiences, Elaine. There’s an interesting line between spontaneity and pre-planning in photography. I find that a lot of my spontaneous shots have clear emotions, but they don’t always look refined in the way I want. My goal in general is to improve a composition when taking several photos in a row, without losing the emotion of the first shot. As such, I’m always happy when my last image in a sequence (or at least a late one) is better than the earlier attempts. But other photographers have told me they often prefer their earlier photos in a sequence – more emotion, less overthinking. Neither way is right or wrong. It’s just different approaches.