It took me 7 years to learn this
This will be a very quick blog, and more of a reminder to myself every time I feel bummed out about not getting shots from a specific trip or day out.
I’ve come to learn that sometimes you can have the best conditions, the best gear, the most beautiful location and still get sub-par results, or worse still, nothing at all. If you’re a beginner, you can easily blame your lack of experience. If you have a camera that struggles to focus or is slow, it’s easy to blame the tool. When the light doesn’t play ball, you blame the light. You get the idea. When there is something to blame, we often, rightly or wrongly, use it as an excuse.
However, when everything is good, we can only blame ourselves, which can be a tough pill to swallow. Over the years, I’ve realised that you can have everything on the plate and things still won’t go to plan. Not every trip will yield portfolio-worthy photos. Not every day out will result in a keeper. Not every project will result in success. This is part of photography, and learning how to accept failure is a skill worth mastering early on in this craft. The sooner you accept that failure is part of photography, the easier the rest of the journey will be.
To build on this, I can argue that not every trip, day out, or project needs to be a success. We seldom learn any lessons when things go well. In most cases, the biggest lessons come from failures. I only arrived at my specific camera set-up after missing hundreds of shots from an unsuitable one. I only learned about composition after messing up and punching myself in the face once I realised my mistake. Failing often, fail fast, and fail forwards.
Given how short this blog is, here are some of my photos from 2 days in Gibraltar.
