Trees in Silence, Hudson Valley
“In a world filled with metrics and bestseller lists, it’s easy to decide that everyone is your competitor and easier still to worry about your rank. Worry all you want, but if it gets in the way of your art or starts changing your mission, it’s probably a mistake.” – Seth Godin
This great quote captures much of what I have struggled with over the years, and how I think about the whole issue of comparisons these days. Competition is rampant in landscape and nature photography – it seems there are always contests to enter, and endless ways to compare ourselves to the “competition”.
Just visit any art fair (or worse participate in one) to experience this first hand. The endless “I can do that” or “is my work good enough” really misses the point of it all. If you have something to say, then it should measure up against what you have said in the past. If it’s not making an impact, then it’s time to improve your vocabulary, or practice your story telling. Comparing our images to others doesn’t take into consideration many important variables like skill, dedication, practice, and most crucial personal experience.
If you allow your perceptions of where you stand in the overall “rank” of photography to guide your creativity, then you’ll never develop your own vision. Is there a shortage of photography in the world today? Not by any stretch of the imagination – in fact we are over saturated with imagery. I would argue that what is in short supply are original voices willing to tell their stories about what inspires them.
Don’t worry about competition, worry about whether you are getting any real responses to your work – often that comes when you forget about what everyone else is doing.
Check out Robert’s website for images, workshops, webinars and more: LINK
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The Outdoor Photo Gear Blog is an outdoor photographer's resource for photo and camera tips about photography in nature, wildlife and other outdoor settings. Throughout the blog you'll find great articles on composition, lighting, general photography and imaging techniques used by professional photographers.
The Outdoor Photo Gear Store sells great photography equipment and accessories for the wildlife, landscape, and nature photographers. If you haven't visited The Outdoor Photo Gear Store to see all great camera and flash accessories for the avid outdoor photographer, you should check out all the great gear we offer.
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Competition in Nature Photography
September 22nd, 2011 by Robert Rodriguez Jr.This great quote captures much of what I have struggled with over the years, and how I think about the whole issue of comparisons these days. Competition is rampant in landscape and nature photography – it seems there are always contests to enter, and endless ways to compare ourselves to the “competition”.
Just visit any art fair (or worse participate in one) to experience this first hand. The endless “I can do that” or “is my work good enough” really misses the point of it all. If you have something to say, then it should measure up against what you have said in the past. If it’s not making an impact, then it’s time to improve your vocabulary, or practice your story telling. Comparing our images to others doesn’t take into consideration many important variables like skill, dedication, practice, and most crucial personal experience.
If you allow your perceptions of where you stand in the overall “rank” of photography to guide your creativity, then you’ll never develop your own vision. Is there a shortage of photography in the world today? Not by any stretch of the imagination – in fact we are over saturated with imagery. I would argue that what is in short supply are original voices willing to tell their stories about what inspires them.
Don’t worry about competition, worry about whether you are getting any real responses to your work – often that comes when you forget about what everyone else is doing.
Check out Robert’s website for images, workshops, webinars and more: LINK
Comments
The Outdoor Photo Gear Store sells great photography equipment and accessories for the wildlife, landscape, and nature photographers. If you haven't visited The Outdoor Photo Gear Store to see all great camera and flash accessories for the avid outdoor photographer, you should check out all the great gear we offer.
Tags: competition, Nature Photography, robert rodriguez jr, viewpoint
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 10:07 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.