It is virtually impossible to keep up the standard of blogging material when one posts everyday - I also had some problems regarding quality prior to starting, but like a lot of things, once one has dived in, it works out somehow.

About eighteen months ago a couple of friends named Gary Carter and Jason Staats started becoming immersed in photography. Jason purchased a digital SLR and Gary a Nikon 8300 (?). Both had a real passion for just shooting whatever they happened to come across. They were having fun and I was jealous because I used to do the same.

I started carrying around a little Nikon Coolpix 4300 and found that I enjoyed playing around with it. They weren’t anything but snapshots but I liked what I was doing. About the same time I started looking at photoblogs. I saw people posting pictures that were far from perfect, and in some cases not even good images. Of course I also saw some spectacular images.The funny thing was that I liked looking at the work of many of these photographers and it wasn’t necesarily the work of the best photographers that I enjoyed looking at the most. Some people just had a real passion for what they were doing and others just posted pictures for the shear pleasure of it. Flickr is a wonderful example of a photographic melting pot. There are extremely talented photographers posting images and there are horrendous photographers posting images. But it just didn’t matter if the pictures were good or bad, because for the most part that wasn’t the point.

I’ve found that I can accept less then what I see as perfect images from myself. It was very hard for me to post anything at first. I’m used to shooting hundreds of images to get that one “money” shot and what I show a client can make or break a deal. I cringed when I posted my first few dozen images because I knew they were not the best I was capable of. I knew if I went back and reshot the images I posted that I could do better.

Well, I still am far from comfortable posting most of the images I put on my sight. I struggle mightily to put some of them up. The image that will post tonight is a good example of this. It is another of my old door series. Several people had asked about seeing the door in black and white. I had shot about 100 images of the door using Kodak Plus-X 125 but I was not happy with the results. A few months ago I would not have posted one of them. Now I have the attitude of so what if they are not great art or photography - they are at least decently executed shots.

So, I’m now trying to be comfortable with showing my less then perfect and experimental work. I’m also for the most part enjoying myself. And I have shot several thousands of images that were shot for the shear hell of it.

Funilly enough I often look at scenes and think of other bloggers also - Sidney and David often take pictures I wish I had the confidence to take.

The learning point mentioned in this article is an exception to the rule as discussed in yesterday’s article which is why it is noteworthy enough for me to write this article.

I don’t get the type of feedback you’re seeming to get . . . which sort of makes me sad. Maybe I just need to say “damn it, give me real feedback today.”