How Two 'Bad' Photos Changed a Photographer's Life

When you think of the landmark photos in your career, those that changed its trajectory, they are probably some of your best work. But for one photographer, two "bad" photos significantly changed his life, and this important video essay tells the stories behind them.

Coming to you from Evan Ranft, this important video discusses how two "bad" photos changed his life as a photographer. I think Ranft is touching on something really important here. Something that very commonly frustrates creatives of all sorts is that professional success is not simply based on skill. A large amount of it (maybe even the majority) has nothing to do with your skills, but rather with networking, business acumen, and your ability to put yourself in the right place at the right time for when opportunity strikes. It would be nice if skill was directly correlated to professional success, and of course, it does matter, but it is not the only thing that matters, and it is just as important to develop competency in the other aforementioned areas as well. I have seen far too many talented creatives fail to make it because they didn't develop themselves professionally. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Ranft.

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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6 Comments

Skip to 4:15 in the video to get past a bunch of fluff to where the topic of the article actually begins.

Thanks captain. Fluff destroys my interest in a video immediately.

Unfortunately most of the Youtube photography videos could be condensed to 25% and be much better that way, I wonder if there are financial incentives to make them longer.

There is. Videos of more than 10 or 11 minutes are favoured by advert algorithm apparently.

I guess that's the reason why I have stopped watching most videos on Youtube. Too much filler.

Or completely skip this self-indulgent prattle. It took me a while, but then I remembered: I've seen this guy before and I've felt the same. He talks and talks and talks and talks. He seems to like his talking so much that he often forgets what he wanted to say at the beginning. Needless to mention that this video is basically a commercial.