Failure is not an option… Or is it?
Here we are, well into the new year and with a good head start on all of our resolutions, and my advice to you is… to take more crappy pictures in 2019! You may be wondering what the hell I was thinking about choosing the banner image for this post. I admit that it’s not one of my best. But before you stop reading on because you think I’ve lost the ability to make a decent picture, hear me out.
The underlying goals for photographers and creatives are usually the same, year after year: to be more productive, more focused, and to shed bad habits (of which I have more than a few), all in the pursuit of being better at our craft.
I took this image at Weston Beach in Point Lobos State Reserve during one of our recent local workshops. For those of you not familiar with Weston Beach, it’s named after famed photographer Edward Weston, and it’s a beautiful place. When the tide is low, it reveals breathtaking rock formations, intricate patterns, and an array of colors and tones—it’s eye candy for painters, poets, and photographers. I was there for a breathtaking sunset and came away with precisely nothing. Nada. Zilch. I failed.
This is far from my first visit or first failure at Weston Beach; I’ve been there many times and I have never come away with a landscape I like; I just haven’t figured that place out yet. And this failure at Weston Beach was not my only in 2018—not by a long shot. Last year was not my most photographically productive. While some of that non-productivity was intentional, one of my big resolutions for 2019, I suspect like many of you, is be more productive.
I want to be prouder of my work this year than last, to connect more with what I’m shooting and why I’m shooting it, and to be more focused. Sounds like a great plan, right? But how to make it happen is always the question. My strategy: I intend to fail. I want to fail more, and fail big. And while that might seem counterproductive—an utterly stupid thing to have as a goal—I have a strategy!
Instead of shying away from failure, I’m setting my sights on it—as detrimental as that may seem.
The reason I’ve shared this “bad” image with you is that I want you to see my imperfections. If you think that professional photographers always take great images, you’d be wrong; we so-called pros make far more bad images than successful ones. It doesn’t matter if you’re a hobbyist or a well-seasoned pro, a painter, a writer, a dancer, a salesman, a chef, or whatever—there will always be a failure-to-success ratio in your life regarding your work. And that ratio will always vary.
The problem is that failure is painful and discouraging. And since our brains are wired to avoid pain and discomfort, fear of failure stops us and slows us down. But it’s normal and it should be expected—perhaps even embraced, considering it’s unavoidable.
Whether we embrace failure or avoid it, we are absolutely, positively, required to experience it one way or another in the pursuit of evolving at what we do.
So there you have it: my strategy for 2019 is to take more bad, awful, terrible photos so I can increase the number of successful photos I make.
I want to work more, fail more, and thus succeed more.
What do you think? Am I on to something?
If you’re willing to share one of your crappy photos and talk about what you learned from making that image, I’d love to hear from you.
If you feel that all you make are crappy photos, that’s a bigger conversation—and I can help you with that. Get in touch (CONTACT ME) and let’s talk about how coaching might benefit you and your craft.
Stay outside, stay engaged, stay playful.
– Jason Bradley