More often than not, a photographer's greatest enemy when it comes to improving and growing as a creative is actually themselves. It can be a sneaky thing, though; we do not always notice when we are making our own lives unnecessarily difficult and holding back our work. This great video features a seasoned photographer discussing five common excuses we all need to push past to continue to grow as photographers.
Coming to you from Justin Mott, this excellent video discusses five common excuses photographers make and why they are harmful. One that definitely took me a bit to recognize and push past was the idea that you need to travel to prime locations to make interesting photos. That is not to say that popular locations are not popular for a reason. However, that does not mean that you can't make good photos at other locations; in fact, I would argue that you can make excellent photos just about anywhere, and furthermore, if you want to improve as a photographer, you are better served by challenging yourself to make compelling imagery out of places that one might normally find a bit mundane or uninteresting. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Mott.
Excellent advice! I think the hard part is getting people to the “no excuses” point; to build that creative urgency that gets you working, whatever your medium is, every day. Some people have that internal compass while others need lots of external push.
"More often than not, a photographer's greatest enemy when it comes to improving and growing as a creative is actually themselves."
isn't it himself instead of themselves ? english is not my native language that's why I ask...
Themselves is appropriate because in this case, "photographer" refers to a man or a woman.
In that case it would not be 'a photographer's' (singular) but photographers' (plural). In the case in question it should be 'himself/herself'.
There is no accepted singular for “themselves,” and it is accepted as both the singular and plural, thus the pairing with the singular possessive, indicating a single photographer of unspecified gender.