Mediocrity

Yesterday after a shoot with a friend of a friend, I found myself lamenting the mediocrity of my images. There was simply nothing special about them. This was an every-day shoot, and I treated it like one. Thus, the images came out looking every-day. Admittedly, some photographer's every-day images are better than others, and while these were not bad pictures, they were not great either. 

Then I found myself thinking.

"What is so bad about mediocrity anyway?"

We as photographers, and as people, need mediocre pictures once in a while. It makes the really good ones stand out, it shows us how we can improve and teaches us what really makes the "good" picture so good. Great photographers make shitty pictures all the time but you as the viewer or the audience never see them. Likewise, shitty photographers can make great pictures. Everybody sees those pictures. It does not matter if you are shooting a disposable, a PS (point n shoot), a DSLR, or an 8x10. There will always be lots of bad pictures. All we can do is critique those pictures. Ask ourselves "Why does that picture suck?" and "How could I have made that a better picture?"

Mediocrity exists for us to learn from. So really, I am proud to say that my images yesterday were not fantastic. I learned a few things, and caught myself making mistakes that I have not made in a long time. At my next shoot, I will not make the same mistakes, and the images will be better for it.

Totally unrelated, have a  couple fun little pictures I shot the other day. Longboarding rocks!

Tech for both images: D300, Vivid PC: saturation boost +2, 18-55mm at 18mm, f3.5,   5 second exposure to let the grass and moonlight in. the boarders were stopped using 1 SB600 flash about 4 feet camera left, 1/4 or 1/2 power. We tried the start the shoot earlier, when I would not have needed such a rediculously slow shutter, but we got kicked off the road (up to NCAR) by a rent-a-cop and were forced to switch locations.

-Matt