Your photos can look flat even after a solid shoot, and the fix usually has nothing to do with settings. If you want your work to feel less generic and more like it came from your own eye, this video points you toward habits that actually change what you notice.
Coming to you from Rick Bebbington, this practical video lays out five rules for getting out of the “everything is fine but nothing is special” rut. Bebbington starts with a move that feels almost old-fashioned: print your work. A screen lets you slide past weaknesses because the file feels endless, but a print forces a decision about what deserves paper. That small cost in time and money raises your standards fast, especially when a photo you thought was “good enough” looks flimsy on the wall.
Another early point is about the boxes you build around yourself, often without noticing. Bebbington describes how labeling your work too narrowly can quietly dictate where you go, when you shoot, and what you ignore. If you only “do” one kind of scene, you start chasing the same conditions and the same views, which makes your archive predictable. He also hints at a simple exercise that helps you figure out what you should be shooting based on what already fits your life, which is a smarter constraint than pretending you have endless free time. The video gets more specific about how to spot your own excuses once you admit they exist.
Then he goes after the most tempting distraction: shopping. A new camera can make the file cleaner, but it cannot make the idea stronger, and Bebbington is blunt about that. He is not anti-gear, but he draws a line between tools that help you enjoy shooting and purchases meant to soothe insecurity. He's clear: a bigger sensor plus a sharper lens can produce a technically perfect version of a boring frame.
The middle of the video shifts from tools to nerve. Bebbington talks about what happens when you shoot for approval, where “likes” train you to repeat whatever already worked, and you end up recycling the safe angles. He pushes you to make work you actually care about, even if that means fewer people respond, and he shares how outside opinions can get loud when you publish anything. There is also a practical idea that sounds simple but stings when you do it: ask whether a subject is interesting before you take the shot, and walk away if the answer is no. He ties that to working close to home, where the scenes are familiar and the only way to make them fresh is to look harder, then come back when the light actually helps, then print and critique the result until you can name what you would change next time. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Bebbington.
1 Comment
Boring stems from a daily routine that never changes. Any sort of deviation from the daily routine can potentially be an adventure that cures boring. I especially like his last point which was: "Interesting isn't where you go, it's how you look at where you are."
Change perspective. Change focal length. Get closer to the subject. In fact, a macro lens opened up a whole new world of seeing images for me that never existed before. And after 20 years of photography, I recently acquired a longer 300mm zoom lens that reached compositions where my feet could not take me. Obviously nothing revolutionary to the rest of the world, but a new adventure for me. While I'm sympathetic that buying new gear isn't the solution to everything, a new lens can alter the way we see, which breaks up that routine of always looking the same way, which often cures boring.
After many years of photographing only the grand landscape, a macro lens turned my own property to an adventure in seeing....