Suckage
Jul 14th, 2008 by John Setzler
I read a post on Paul Lester’s blog this morning that got me thinking about my goals again. Paul wrote out a very nice response to the typical question about “How can I keep from sucking at photography?”
First of all, it’s OK to suck at photography as long as you have a good time at it. In fact, most people don’t realize they suck at photography until someone else tells them they suck. I know I never sucked at photography until I had my first encounter with someone who wanted to be critical of my work. From that point foward, I sucked most of the time and still do for that matter. It’s a real downer for some people. The epiphany of suckage ruins many good photographers. At that point, a photographer tends to change what he’s doing to suck less in the eyes of those who shone light on the suck factor of his work.
First, you need to find what you like. Then, you need to find your voice, or what you have to say about it.
This little jewel from Paul’s post sums up a lot of good wisdom for photographers. This should come first. If you find yourself changing what you like in order to reduce the suck factor of your work, then you may need to re-evaluate why you are interested in photography.
Keep in mind… this comes from a photographer who is not interested in commercial work :)
Great leading picture, definitely not a sucker. Here in Germany it becomes already a bit wacky to positively portray smokers especially when depicturing so well the indulgence in vice. But even for me as a non-smoker this works.
@Markus: Thanks for the comment. One interesting bit about this photo is that most of the smoke you see in the image is not from the cigarette… It’s from a barbecue grill that isn’t visible in the photo. I just thought the extra smoke worked well in this particular photo. This photo isn’t intended to glamorize smoking in any way. Hopefully the photograph is a good character portrait of the person :)
Great post, John. You hit upon a very important point when you said: “This comes from a photographer who is not interested in commercial work”. That’s a very good point. However, I also mentioned technical proficiency as well to help you with your vision. For commercial work, you have to do what you are told, but you also have to have the technical know how to pull it off. You certainly cannot suck or you won’t get hired. So, the ’suckage rating’ comes from the outside, not the inside.
External feedback can be very important in helping you get to where you want to go … perhaps. After all, an opinion about your photography is merely someone’s idea of how they would change it to suit themselves. It’s not an absolute. So, if I say your photography sucks, that is from my point of view. However, if you are happy with it, then my opinion sucks! :-)
@Paul: I agree with the technical proficiency comment for the most part, especially with commercial work. In my opinion as far as artistic photography is concerned, technical proficiency is secondary to many other things though…