[Rabid Penguin]

Lately, to put it simply, i just don't like most, if any, of my pictures. They all just seem amateurish and, well, crap. People tell me otherwise, but noone of them are photographers, so i don't really listen to them.

I've gone through my pictures and deleted probably a quarter of them (for things such as bad focus, bad composition, etc), but lately i've really been tempted to just delete everything... I'm not cause i know i'll regret it if i do.

I just compare my pictures to everyone elses and mine seem like snapshots. I feel very discouraged

[matthew]

If it helps, yes, I feel that as well. And when it comes to comparing ourselves to others and liking theirs better, you should know that I often feel that with your photos. So you're doing just fine and shouldn't be discouraged.

I rank all of my photos in Lightroom, and give a "1 star" rating to everything that's not complete carp or redundant -- about half of my photos over the past six months. I've heard it should be closer to 90%. I also get into times when I know I'm in a funk, and don't like anything I shoot, and none of my older photos look any good, either. It's typically a time immediately after I've done something really interesting, like a trip, and come away feeling burned out and dejected.

But you're right, if you delete everything you will regret it later. Either you're wrong about how you feel, and the photos have a lot of merit (my opinion), or you're right and in a year or two you'll be able to look back on how much you've improved. (Or both.)

[Toad]

Its really common to get discouraged from time to time and feel that your photos are crap next to other people's. That is a sure sign that you are learning and it always feels most daunting when you realize how much you have to learn. Bear in mind that recognizing what makes a great photo is the biggest skill you can learn in order to make great photos yourself.

Don't do anything silly like deleting your photos. I often get discouraged and think that large groups of my photos are crap - sometimes when I look back at them a year later, I see amazing stuff that just needs a crop or an adjustment done to expose the good stuff in it. The photo was always the same - only my perspective has changed.

[guerito]

I'm going through this motion every once in a while, I'm getting used to it. I think this is quite normal for someone with ambition and a somewhat realistic self-esteem.

Maybe this is what separates amateurs like me from artists - the artists I've met seemed to be absolutely certain that their work is the greatest thing on earth.

[Banded Drake]

i have beenn going through the same thing . I think what it is the more you learn the higher you set your standards . this is a great thing but it can be tough at the same time . I try to just set my camera down for a little while , then i pick it back up just for " fun " . This seems to help me . Although it doesnt help my shots LOL ......

....... Shawn

[smarti77]

I have extreme 'phases' with my own photography. I may love my 'latest' images but when I look at them after a while I came become over critical and negative... it almost becomes self destructive. For me the best thing to do is to take a break from photography completely. The interest always comes back.

Hard drive space or blank DVD's are cheap - don't delete anything. 'Archive' them for a while.

[essaljay]

TELL ME ABOUT IT!!!! I too go through phases of hating my own work. I know I'm over critical, but when it's your own work you are aren't you? What always gets me is just when I'm feeling better about myself along comes Irma with her latest piece and as usual it's great and I put my camera away again for another day. (Don't let that stop you Irma. keep posting. I enjoy your work) But even on my worst days I couldn't delete my stuff but I have been known to consign it to a file titled "rubbish" which means I don't have to look at it unless I really want to.

[Rabid Penguin]

Well good to know i'm not the only one!

[Rabid Penguin]

I find a lot of my pictures technically good, just...boring images, if you know what i mean. I don't know if that's because i see them all the time, of if i've actually seen it in real life too.

[Irma]

I couldn't help it but take your comment as a big complement, essaljay.

Thanks so much, for your thoughts about my work and specially because you are telling this.

You made an grownup girl really be happy....

About keeping and deleting pictures, I had also the idea of deleting all my work last year. I think everyone thinks the same onece in its life. It is like "I want to start again but now with much more experience, and I am sure I won't do these mistakes again..." I talked about this with G, and he told me that it was not possible, that it was somehow part of my learning history, and you can't wipe off all you have done to reach the place you are now, and lose all those testimonials of your experiences.

I took his advice and I didn't delete anything. However, I delete a lot of my pictures now, if they are not right at the first time, I delete the whole series and start from scratch, specially with pictures I can replace just by going to the supermarket and buying a new bunch of flowers or going again to the lake and take the picture again.

I found that if I keep those pictures, they will be acting like hooks, and I will be trying to make them work however. Working hours of post processing, cloning, cropping, resizing... I was, sometimes, in the position that I had to win, no matter how but I want it to work. At the end, we all know that a great post processing, image manipulation start with a good picture. So, now I delete a lot and try again. The only pictures I keep are the ones I use as reference to know what I did, not to do it again, or the ones that I think they might work with a post processing I don't know at this moment how to do but I am sure it will work. Textures, kind of stock photography and I also keep pictures of my trips.

Just few days ago I worked on a picture I stored for more than one year, I loved my picture, but I didn't know how to show what I wanted to show. I reworked with it again, and I played with my bw greenish technique on it and it worked!!

About your pictures RP, sometimes you get boring pictures, I know that well, but if your picture is technically good, you can work with them, and make them interesting working colors, adding textures, changing somehow the mood in your picture. I have seen really nice work out there with this kind of pictures, and when you imagine them without any post processing they are just plane boring pictures.

[matthew]

I was thinking about this thread as I went through some of my older images today. I'm looking for photos in my archives that were taken on a particular street, which meant dredging through about twenty thousand photos taken over the past three years. In the weeds I found a number of photos that were good but hadn't been touched, and several others that I remembered but know I can do better now. And, naturally, about 19,700 images that were crap.

(it could have been worse -- my various lightroom catalogs total over 50,000 images. It makes me think about my mother's slide collection that was accumulated over eight years and still only numbers about 1% of what I've created, and the mess that I'll be leaving for my successors.)

I find a lot of my pictures technically good, just...boring images, if you know what i mean.

It certainly comes with familiarity. But you also got me thinking about the photographs that I like, both mine and other people's, and most of them are boring. Today I rushed to the post office to pick up a package because I knew it included a long-awaited copy of Steven Shore's book Uncommon Places: the Complete Works. The scenes within are called banal -- "drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite; lacking originality, freshness, or novelty" -- by the blurb on the back cover. Twice. He's reminiscent of Walker Evans, who would set up a view camera to photograph a sign pasted on a wooden fence. Yet both create excellent photographs with a quiet value that rewards long-term interest.

I can also think of many well-regarded historical and contemporary photographers who produce sub-exciting images. Ansel Adams and Freeman Patterson both come to mind, but I know people who would hunt me down for saying such a thing.

Maybe "boring" is a valid and valuable genre of photography.

[Don Schaeffer]

You have to be very stubborn and very self-loving to survive. It's especially hard when there is a rating scale and your photos get lower ratings than everybody else's. I've been trying to put my photos on a stock photo site. Of the 2 or 3 dozen I tried to upload, all but 7 (photos of plants) have been rejected. Hang in there and love yourself, man.

[Anubis]

Basically I think ALL of my photos are crap ALL of the time

Suppose one day I'll do one I actually think is any good

[wulinka]

Always, all the time, I think all of us know exactly what you feel.
Sometimes it happens when you get new gear (yes! opposite to what you expect, new equipment can trigger a creative slump....), sometimes it is in your environment, you feel like you have seen it all and done it all and there is nothing new and inspiring in what you see.....

you don't need a reason at all, sometimes you just can't find the inspiration in your pictures that you want.

I find a change of settings often helps. going away for a weekend, even just taking a half day to discover an area of your town that you haven't been to - rediscovering fun times with your camera, spend with no pressure to get any results.

Hope you get better soon

Uli

[Keith Alan]

I don't hate my photos anymore, I just hate waiting for something new to interest me enough to bother shooting it.
So I go back to my list of images I still haven't made yet, and also try to add to the various series I'm working on.
And then something happens that's irresistable...

I quit worrying about inspiration and quality and what other people think sometime last year.
It's 2008 and everything before right now was just practice.