Who Do You Shoot For?

What is your driving force behind your photography? Do you shoot to impress judges in contests, do you shoot for likes and engagement on social medias, or do you shoot to satisfy yourself? To me, it would be soul crushing to spend my time shooting to satisfy someone else. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate awards in competitions, and engagement on social media is also great but my shooting is to make me happy first and foremost.

Several years ago, my wife and I shot weddings and although it had it’s rewards, it was a lot of work too. People don’t understand the work after the fact. The culling of images, the editing and curating that has to be done is time consuming and exhausting, especially when you have a full time job at the same time. It didn’t take long before we began to look at our photography as a job. There was no time for pleasure shooting, just preparing and delivering photos to clients. As for shooting our own stuff, it never happened any longer. Most wedding photographers I know shoot only weddings so maybe we weren’t the only ones feeling that way.

When we left weddings behind, I promised myself that I was going to shoot to only please me and that’s worked far better. When I’m out somewhere making images, I only look to make the best image I can at the time. My thoughts are about compositions and conditions to please me. If others also like my work, that of course makes me happy but the number one goal is that I have had a good time capturing something that pleases me.