Does anyone actually like there own images?

blinkerz

blinkerz

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Tristan
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Just a quick question wondering if any people feel the same as me about there photography. I dont like my own images and prefer looking at others, especially on flickr etc.

I dont even backup my images and dont really care if all my pictures got lost/deleted... nor have i printed out any of my pictures. Yet i still take pictures in the hope that one day i will like something i produce...

Is this strange?:shrug:
 
Have some pics I realy like others that I dont, swing and roundabouts I guess.
 
I :love: my pictures.
Well the good ones anyway!

I have hundreds stored on my PC, most are crap, but some are bloody good.

All the ones I think are good go onto Flickr. Eventually!!
 
It's not strange. I think the more you get into photography the more self critical you get.
Most of my stuff is technically ok but there's only a small % I'd even think of calling good.
Don't worry about it, it's perfectly normal and probably a good thing :)
 
blinkerz said:
Just a quick question wondering if any people feel the same as me about there photography. I dont like my own images and prefer looking at others, especially on flickr etc.

I dont even backup my images and dont really care if all my pictures got lost/deleted... nor have i printed out any of my pictures. Yet i still take pictures in the hope that one day i will like something i produce...

Is this strange?:shrug:
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That's a bit worrying considering you produce some pretty good stuff. ;)

If you'd have said you were never quite satisfied with your images, I could identify with that entirely, but to say you don't like your own work to the extent you wouldn't care if you lost the lot, then yep - that qualifies as a bit strange I reckon.

I'd be mortified if I lost all my images!!
 
I don't really like any of my pictures, not from a technical "photography" view anyway.

I've not had my DSLR long, so my photographs aren't that good anyway, but I still like looking at them as they remind me of days out and happy times. Maybe I wouldn't like my photographs if I took them while unhappy!
 
I dont ahve a portfolio because i can find something wrong with every picture i take :(
 
CT said:
That's a bit worrying considering you produce some pretty good stuff. ;)

If you'd have said you were never quite satisfied with your images, I could identify with that entirely, but to say you don't like your own work to the extent you wouldn't care if you lost the lot, then yep - that qualifies as a bit strange I reckon.

I'd be mortified if I lost all my images!!
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I guess i mean not satisfied, when your subjected to so many great images out there on the internet its kinda puts your stuff in its place:)... I enjoy creating and processing images, but when its all done and relook at them, i just see faults and think i could/should done better...
 
I'll take a photo. Love it. Post to flickr, upload to my photoblog, sometimes pimp it up on facebook and twitter.
Next day i'll wake up and hate it and try to take a better one.
That's photography :cuckoo::lol:
 
blinkerz said:
Does this all mean that as photographers we will never be happy:P
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Not at all. Just get used to being fairly ruthless with the results, dump the dross and keep the good stuff. And believe me there will be good stuff and it'll get better as time goes on. Whatever you do don't get disheartened with it.
 
blinkerz said:
I guess i mean not satisfied, when your subjected to so many great images out there on the internet its kinda puts your stuff in its place:)... I enjoy creating and processing images, but when its all done and relook at them, i just see faults and think i could/should done better...
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Tristan... I think everyone to some degree see the faults in their images, I know I do and they shout at me most of the time, however I tend not to listen to the racket, and make note of the issues and try to avoid them in the future.

The way i look at it, its a learning curve that is really a circle and the learning never ends... if it does I think the boredom would strike and the whats the point attitude would kick in.

That is one thing I really love about photography, you are always performing self crit and are never satisfied.

You produce cracking portraits mate, I think it is time for you to do a back up mate,

blinkerz said:
Does this all mean that as photographers we will never be happy:P
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I do not think its a matter of never being happy, but always wanting to learn and perfect the next thing on the list.

I am always happy when I out and about camera in hand....

Regards

Nigel
 
Im not disheartened or down in the dumps, far from it:), i find it comical the way photography can be for some people including myself..

I would say im deffiently very happy when out with the camera taking pictures, which is why i carry on with it.. just after all downloading / sorting /processing and the end result, theres always something that could be better:)
 
Bill Roberts said:
Most of my stuff is technically ok but there's only a small % I'd even think of calling good.
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pretty much sums up my attitude to mine - perfectly workmanlike, nothing really wrong with them but few that really make you go wow! :'(
 
Flash In The Pan said:
It's an "artist" thing - you'll be cutting your ear off next :nuts::lol:
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I reckon a few already have, given they don't seem to listen... :lol:

I'm with you to a degree Blinkerz. I am super critical of my own work and yet i'm often amazed at stuff i produce which gets great feedback yet i think is awful... There's just no accounting for taste. The question is, which is the good taste - mine or theirs? :D
 
I don't usually like my images.

I usually think yup this one's good. but now it's taken and the PP is sorted it's boring and move onto the next image that I think is good.

So basically I get bored of my images :D
 
Mangelwurzel said:
I'll take a photo. Love it. Post to flickr, upload to my photoblog, sometimes pimp it up on facebook and twitter.
Next day i'll wake up and hate it and try to take a better one.
That's photography :cuckoo::lol:
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:plusone: That about sums it up for me too.

As my old boss says "Happy but not satisfied"
 
I fall in and out of love with my own images.
It can be strange sometimes, you capture an image you are really pleased with, post it, no reply for 3 days, bump it then it gets slated.(not aimed at any forum in particular, I visit a few!)
Other times, you post what you consider to be a mediocre image and people love it.
People often pick up on something in an image (not just/especially not fellow togs) that although they can't put their finger on it, makes a connection.
I think they call it a picture with a heartbeat.
I'm seriously considering pulling my Scottish Landscape print sales website down. I want to get back to pleasing myself rather than other people and get back to enjoying my hobby.
I don't really give a hoot wether they sell or not anymore or even if they gain acceptance from fellow photographers, as long as I get some satisfaction from them.
I always archive all RAW files from a shoot before I start pruning them.
As my post processing skills develop, on a rainy day I'll go and drag one out of the closet and think 'how did I miss that one?'
Other times I'll delete images from my gallery and say to myself 'what the hell were you thinking?' Then someone will come along and say 'wheres that image of so & so, I wanted to buy it?'
Strange old world photography and all too easy to get wrapped up in our kitbags and forget what it's all about.
 
I am the same - I know some of my pics are good but I always know I could have done them better. But what you need to remember is that you look at every detail - you know what it is you wanted to do differently. Whereas most other people looking at your pictures see them as a complete image - they don't see what's behind them the same as the photographer does.

It is very difficult to step back and view your own pictures as someone else would but that's what you need to learn to do. Then now and then you see a picture and say to your self 'hey that's not bad at all' :)
 
I reckon we're our own worst enemy when it comes to our own opinions regarding our own stuff. And let's face it, and this might be a corny cliche, but nobody's perfect.
Most of the time, I'm quite happy with what I've taken but I'd have to be in the right mood and right frame of mind for it whenever I think about taking and looking at my photos for one reason or another.
If I'm having a bad day or I've been in a steaming rush in them greenhouses all day and I come home all tired and irritable then I won't touch the camera as I know I won't produce good results (which does make putting together my 365 photo website quite hard work sometimes!).
But then I have my better days and whenever I take pictures, I do find myself actually admiring them, and thankfully that is much more often the case than not. So, yes, I would be utterly gutted if I ever had a hard drive failure and all my CDroms got corrupted at the same time and I lose everything in the process.
I have never thought of myself as a "brilliant" photographer but as someone who just merely enjoy photography and all the time I think I've developed my own little niche in the world of photography then I'm generally happy with my stuff. Oh, of course I do produce the odd dud photos (who doesn't?) and those are the one that gets deleted without hestitation. :D It's a shame that it's only in the past five years have I got into photography big time, but that's only because of the relative ease and cheapness associated with digital photography rather than traditional film photography.
Actually, having said all that, I'm a lot more critical with my cartoons. Whenever I do a cartoon and finally place it on the internet for all to see, I find myself looking at it and thinking there would be room for improvements. I always feel like it's missing something or it's not "quite there" and even though I've drawn literally thousands of cartoons, it feels like I've still yet to produce that ultimate cartoon that I'm really happy with. But at the end of the day I put it down to an artist thing and don't let it get to me.
 
When I was depressed I threw out all my photos, around 10,000 35mm and 6x7 trannies and negs and I have no regrets. Most of the enjoyment for me is in the picture taking process, I look at my photos and try to do better but actually have little attachment to them. I don't have sentimental attachment to any possessions either so maybe it stems from that.
 
I think I'm still new enough at this that, even though I don't take great (or good most of the time) pictures by any stretch of the imagination, I still get a sense of achievement when something goes right.

Most of mine end up in the recycle bin but the okayish ones end up on here for C&C in the hope that I will do better next time. There are one or two that I'm really pleased with just because I got what I set out to get - i.e. manual settings and understanding why I needed to do a certain thing.

I am a VERY self critical person when it comes to my working life, and going back a few years all through school / college / university, and am quite often pretty dissappointed with myself even when others' think I have done well. Strangley photography is the one thing where I can be self critical, but not to the point of being dissappointed or unhappy. I just want to learn more and improve - learning from the mistakes I know I have made, and the ones people point out on here, is the only way I am going to do that so at the moment the poor pictures are as equally valuable as the not so poor.

Maybe when I have been into photography for longer things will change as my expectations of myself will increase... but then hopefully my "hit rate" will increase too!
 
I don't 'like' most my pictures. But I don't want to delete/lose any of them.
This is going to sound very stupid but I started taking pictures last year because I didn't want to miss points of my life and not have anything to document back to, my memory is crap and the one thing I regret in particular is not having enough pictures of past pets. So I started taking photos for that pure reason.

And I think for the same base reason, is why I now don't delete pictures[unless they're duff/crap]
 
Bachs said:
...
...
I don't really give a hoot wether they sell or not anymore or even if they gain acceptance from fellow photographers, as long as I get some satisfaction from them.

.
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I agree with all of Bachs post, especially the portion quoted above.

I gave up long ago trying to please everyone all the time and made a conscious effort to nail down what exactly I like and I've been enjoying my photography ever since.

I have to say joining this forum years ago started my apprehension over my own images, I suddenly realised I was in fact trying to please the folk here in a bid to improve my work, rather than doing what ever I like and taking crit as it came, the good and the bad.

I'm quite surprised I like my own shots as I am totally over critical of my abilities, as are most of us, I can see all my mistakes but it doesn’t matter so much…. I put it down to the fact I capture what I want to see and don't care one bit if the majority don't.
 
I'd sell your camera TBH :cuckoo:


blinkerz said:
Just a quick question wondering if any people feel the same as me about there photography. I dont like my own images and prefer looking at others, especially on flickr etc.

I dont even backup my images and dont really care if all my pictures got lost/deleted... nor have i printed out any of my pictures. Yet i still take pictures in the hope that one day i will like something i produce...

Is this strange?:shrug:
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With my photos Im my own worst critique lol, if I get a photo Im happy with Im surprised (especially with animals because they don't stay in one place for long lol) because I've only been doing photography for a year and half and Im self taught (learning from photography magazines and books), studying a online photography course but haven't finished yet lol :). I've realised with photography, if we don't make mistakes with our photos, we wouldn't learn from them or make progress. I'd be gutted if I lost my favourite pictures, I put them onto CD, sometimes I put my favourite photos (normally of animals) on the wall, it makes the room more colourful, instead of looking at plain walls. If someone buys one of my pictures or my pictures get in a photography magazine, it means alot that someone likes my picture enough to buy it or put the picture in their magazine.
 
I always really like my photos when I first take and process them. And then I start seeing faults and begin to dislike them. I've a few photos I really like though.

This photo is probably my favourite

2831486329ef72c49f79b.jpg


And I can see plenty of faults in it but it was more about when and where it was taken. It's a personal thing!
 
I can see plenty of faults in it
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you're listening to the anally retentive critics too much with their "too soft" "too sharp" "shame about the fence in the background" "try a higher........"* blah blah.....if i like one of my pictures then it's good, if someone else has to criticise it, it's still good, apart from anything else, you know as well as i do you can't tell what's good on a computer, every machine displays differently so the comments most people make will be inaccurate anyway, i would say stop looking for faults and enjoy the image for what it is, maybe then you will enjoy your own work ;)
 
I like my images. My favorites go up on the wall and I look at them over and over, and six months later my opinion of them hasn't usually changed.

I keep every photo I take, and I occasionally look through the archives and find something I missed the first time. I'd say only about 10% of the photos I take are decent, but that rate is increasing as I improve.
 
I like the pics i take, sure they could be a lot better and i can see a lot of faults.
They're much better now than i used to take and i like those, so i must be improving
a little. But yeah i do like to look at the pics i've taken
 
Yes, I like mine, there are some that are not very good, but you learn by your mistkes. I like other peoples as well - esp if it's something I would like to try to do - gives me something to aim at.:thumbs:
 
I would be gutted if I lost mine and there are a few shots that I really like, I always tend to pull down my own shots, I suppose I always want better shots especially when you see whats produced on here. But I wouldn't take pictures if I didn't get any enjoyment out of viewing at least some of them !!

Dean
 
It's very rare I have an image that I think.....whoa....that's lovely, self critique is a bitch tbh
 
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