The fact you are here, reading this blog, probably means you are like me and you love photography. Not just like or enjoy, but love. Put a camera in my hands and I’m happy. I love being able to unleash my creative side that starts to scream from inside if I keep it bottled up too long. I love how it makes me think on my feet in changing light and situations. I love being able to make a picture that looks nothing like the actual scene my subject and I were standing in at the time and seeing the reaction on their face.

But two weeks (sometimes two days) later I look back at the images I was so pleased with and hate them. I see all the imperfections, I criticise my lighting. I scroll though my portfolio judging everything: “This sucks, this sucks, that’s old, I should have done a better job on that, this all sucks!”. Nothing stacks up against the work I see coming from the photographers I admire.

Only that’s not my quote.

That comes from a photographer I admire.

Zack Arias.

It’s so reassuring to know that Zack, provider of inspiration and the reason the “aperture controls flash exposure, shutter speed controls ambient exposure” penny dropped for me, has the same moments. It’s also a little sobering. I had hoped that when I was producing work as good as that and had achieved that much, I’d be living the Johnny Photographer lifestyle.

But it seems like photography is always going to suck.

It’s a good job I love it.

Thanks to Craig Swanson at CreativeLIVE for getting this segment from Zack’s 2nd three day course edited down and posted to their YouTube channel so I could share it here.