Good VS. Proud.
Lately, I've been in a photography slump. I haven't created an image that I'm super stoked about in a while. I scroll through my past Instagram posts and feel proud about a lot of the images I made but more recently I'm just not excited about how my images are turning out. While learning about producing content there generally two different philosophies. The first one is that you only release what you love and think is 'good', which may result in being stuck reaching for perfectionism. The other is often referred to as the 80% rule, where you release the blog post, photo, video, or other forms of media once it's around 80% to perfect. I sometimes like to think of myself as a perfectionist but then I met people who do design and are painfully meticulous that I realized I'm easily within the camp of getting things to 80%. Now the interesting difference between the two ideologies is that the 80% rule doesn't set boundaries on what perfection might look like and could result in apathy in quality. Whereas the alternative has an equally ambiguous goal point but it does allow you to use your discretion of being personally satisfied with the content you release. I think I've been taking the craft of photography and shortchanging myself at 80% when its something that I always want to do to result in feeling proud. My desire for being vulnerable when I share a photo might even reach the point of where if you critique an image tears might come to my eyes but it will fuel me to get better.
I can definitively confess that the majority of images on my blog are within the 80% margin and the few I release on social media are often the selects that I'm most content with. Not only are the images here primarily reaching that 80% quality level but I also aim for my writing to be at that point. You've probably noticed grammar, spelling or phrasing errors, which I usually know otherwise. Due to the goal of publishing something each week, I don't comb through it as meticulously as some might desire. However, when it comes to my photography I desire to improve and impress with each image. I grew up playing sports and the drive was always to be the best but there is no such thing as the most creative. As I've mentioned in the past, I don't see myself as creative but the wonderful thing is that I have a craft that sometimes creatively disguises my unrelenting, analytical mind.
I didn't plan what I was going to say in this post and honestly, it was somewhat just thrown together in that 80% mindset, leaning towards 60%, but I'm seriously contemplating moving my social media posts to the direction of being proud and personally enjoying the images I display. This could result in only an image a week, a month, or maybe even multiple months apart. I don't think it would affect my frequency of posts on the blog because I wouldn't have as high of a standard and they could be more so for telling a larger story. I would love to hear your opinion: my most loyal supporters who take the time to read the simple words I type. Thank you to the few who stick through these times of being uninspired and creating average work, your patience in this process of redirecting my aim towards improvement is invaluable. Below are a few more wildlife images and only one I'm pretty proud of. It shouldn't be too hard to guess! ;P
