5 Mistakes That Will Keep You From Growing as a Photographer

Growing as a photographer is a tricky thing, as it takes continual development and mastery of numerous technical skills along with simultaneously growing as a creative and finding your voice. If that is something you are struggling with, this excellent video essay discusses five mistakes you might be making that could be holding you back. 

Coming to you from Michael Shainblum, this great video essay discusses five mistakes that can keep you from growing as a photographer. Of them, I think the two most salient for me are letting others control your work and comparing yourself to others too much. With the internet and apps like Instagram, it is easier than ever to quickly digest the work of hundreds of other photographers. That can be a good thing to a degree, as you can easily evaluate your own work, find inspiration, and perhaps see weaker areas that you might want to work on. But it can also very easily turn you into someone who chases trends and shapes their work to most closely mimic popular looks and styles, and unfortunately, that keeps you from finding your own unique creative voice. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Shainblum.

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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12 Comments

that's every photographer on instagram same with the edits and locations. its out of control. its sad just add a glow dreamy edit boom you good. and thats why instagram is the worst place to enjoy the art and craft

I just looked at your portfolio, it’s just as generic as the rest of us. Tune down the rhetoric man.

I think you meant to replace 'generic' with 'cliche'?

That works too.😂🤣😂🤣

I agree even tho I tend to have a glowing look to many of my photos, but try to keep it tasteful and restricted to lighting only.

Anyways, A few of my own personal hates of Instagram is from a few things on top of the out right mimicking to a T other peoples work is the fact that people are super hungry for locations, but they do not want to put the work and time into finding them on their own (not that hard once you learn basics basic google skills and GE skills) so what they do is stroll into your DM randomly to out right asking you to just take them there or so say “yo bro lets go shoot waterfalls” with zero ideas presented. 2. If you do end up hanging out with them in a place known to all, they will pretty much spend a lot of the time playing 21 questions about all the off trail waterfalls you know of or other locations you know of and I should add that they’re facial expressions even change once they get onto playing the “Give me the locations game”.

Another thing is Instagram is packed with narcissists and sociopaths which I personally found out the hard way because one the first people I got close to blindly when I was first starting out shooting is a narcissist who put me through a ringer sadly before I got away and Im still trying to pick up the pieces from them.

I have only been shooting for going on 4 years now and honestly Instagram has damn near shattered my love of the craft of photography and also for the community. This is one of the few platforms in which I have none of the general anxieties or fucked up shit going on like Instagram which has been a blessing to say the least.

FStoppers IS photoshoppers from hell. They're just nicer about it. At least 50% of what I see here is obvious photoshop.

Well, I mean I definitely use photoshop, but I honestly don’t fake a lot of anything really.. I personally like the control and layers plus being able to use layer mask panels. It is certainly not the devil and I also understand what look you are describing tho.
I personally don’t call it “photoshopped” because it is more of a style trend mimicked over and over again. The reality on the gram is that the bulk of the people are using bought preset packages sold to them by the most popular people on the gram. After they use those in Lightroom is when they send stuff to photoshop for sky replacements using most like bought sky files or to do other little tricks you can only do with photoshop like out right adding fake sun stars to slopping together hacked job composites.

From what I have seen so far on here is things are at least tastefully done if they are done at all, but to be honest I also don’t spend a lot of time on here seeking out photos to see much like I don’t really at all on the gram now because its to much subconscious input I don’t want on my own photography.

So true about "style'. Pretty much what I'm seeing now that you point it out. Nothing wrong with that I suppose.

Hey Alex, thank you so much for sharing my video, It means a lot!

Michael you da man! Always love it when your vids drop!

OK, that's it for me. If F-stoppers is just about click-bait headlines to intro someone else's video and offer nothing constructive to the discussion, I may as well skip the middle part and stick with Youtube.

You don’t even have photos up so what do you want to discuss anyways? The mean of life?