10 Things Photographers Need to Stop Doing in 2020

10 Things Photographers Need to Stop Doing in 2020

It’s time to drop these bad habits and clean up your photography act in 2020. Head into the next decade like a warrior.

Stop Expecting Work to Show up on Your Doorstep

You shoot a few photographs, stick them on your website and social media platforms, add the requisite hashtags, chat with other photographers in online communities, leave a few nasty comments on articles, and then wonder why you aren’t getting enough clients to pay your bills.

My dear fellow photographers: you need to learn what marketing is and figure out how to make it work for you. You need to figure out who your client is and create advertisements in the places they spend time. And you need to do it all the time. You can’t throw out a sporadic Facebook ad and then expect clients to turn up at your door. You may get a few random jobs, but unless you’re actively advertising yourself to potential clients (and targeting and tracking them), you aren’t going to earn enough to make a living. You need word of mouth, you need business relationships, you need to cultivate client relationships, you need to be tracking down the kind of people who buy work like yours and drag them through your metaphorical doors. And you have to do it consistently. As soon as you stop advertising, it’s only a matter of time before the flow of clients drops to a trickle or dries up altogether. 

So, stop sitting around expecting clients to just show up. Go out there and find them.

Stop Spending Money in the Wrong Places

Do you really need another lens, another set of actions, or another cool photography gadget? You might. Those things can be awesome and help immensely when they’re actually required. But it’s worth looking at where you spend your revenue to find out if the expenses are actually benefiting your business. Could that $1,200 have been spent on an advertising plan? On a portfolio review? On a mentorship? Take some time to look at your budget and make sure your money is actually being spent in places that will take you and your business to the next level, and stop spending on things that feel good for a while but make no lasting impact on your work.

Model and actor Jack Jackson as Thor

Stop Worrying About What Settings Other Photographers Used

Look, I understand the impulse. You see a great image, and you want to know how it was made. But the problem is that each image is taken under a unique set of circumstances, and there are too many variables to rely on a single set of numbers to understand how and why a photo was made. The settings just don’t reveal as much about an image as you might hope. You’d learn a lot more about the creation of a photograph if you asked the photographer why they chose the settings they used. After all, it’s those creative decisions that are the why behind the final result and will give you a much more comprehensive picture of how an image was made than numbers that could be combined in several different ways for a well-exposed photo. 

Stop Worrying so Much About Gear

That new lens isn't going to make you a better photographer. Only practice and experience can do that. Don’t get me wrong, there are absolutely reasons to buy new gear or upgrade what you’ve got.

Sometimes, you really do need a faster lens, more consistent color temperature, better low-light capabilities, or a lighter body. But the most important part of being a photographer is what’s between your ears, not what’s in your hands. You don’t need the best body on the market to be the best photographer you can be. You don’t need the most expensive lens to get the best shots. You do need to understand light, know the capabilities of your gear, and be able to think creatively. You are no less a photographer for having older gear, or off-brand lights, or cheap modifiers. If you use what you have to its and your full capability, you’ll make amazing photographs.

Model Jason Klein

Stop Trying to Avoid Failure

This may sound crazy, but mistakes are how we learn. Failure is a sign we are trying new things, pushing our comfort zones, and growing. It’s tempting to set everything up so that we never fail, but lack of failure means lack of trying. I’m not saying you should try crazy, untested things with your clients, but you should set aside time to try things that allow you to fail. You never know what you’ll learn or how those failed experiments may change and improve the way you work. Highly successful people cannot be risk averse, not in their creative pursuits and not in their business. This year, try that thing you’ve avoided because you were afraid of failing. It might teach you something invaluable. More importantly, it might teach you to be brave.

Stop Measuring Worth by Likes

Social media validation feels good, but it is by no means the end-all, be-all of photographic life. What’s more important than Instagram likes is what your clients think and say about your work.  Some of the most successful photographers have almost no social media presence, because they spend all their time working, advertising, and catering to their clients. They’re networking in real life, not just following pages on Facebook. How random people mindlessly react to your shared photographs isn’t a guarantee for how your clients will react. Instead of measuring success by likes, try measuring it by happy clients.

If you spend all your time chasing trends, you’ll never invest the time you need to create work that represents who you are as an artist or craftsman. Your work will never be anything more than an endless repetition on a tired theme. It will remain derivative. Instead, spend time figuring out who you are as a photographer, what you love and what motivates you to pick up a camera, and focus on making work that represents your voice. Then, instead of clients hiring you to replicate something they saw on Pinterest, they’ll hire you for the work only you can produce.

Model and prop master Gryndel Ghoulderson

Stop Picking on New Photographers

Please, please stop this. We all started somewhere. Most of our work was utter crap for the first couple of years, but we persisted (more often than not with the help of kind photographers who knew a lot more than we did), and our work became something we didn’t need to be ashamed of. But if you spend your time on social media cutting other photographers down, particularly new photographers, well, you’re a jerk. There’s really no nicer way to say it. Not only are you wasting your time doing something unproductive, you’re crapping on someone who is just doing the best they can with what they know. We can’t complain about a toxic community and then treat new members like junk. So, stop it. For real.

Stop Doubting Yourself

This was on last year's list, but it bears repeating. There are so many reasons to doubt yourself: you haven’t been a photographer for very long, you don’t have expensive lighting equipment, other people are “better” than you, you can’t make what is in your head show up in your photos, or you have difficulties it seems like other photographers don’t have. I can promise you, every photographer has these doubts or has struggled with the same things you’ve struggled with. You are not alone. There is no such thing as a photographer who has it all together, who never struggles, or is always confident. If the photographers you admire can make work they’re proud of, you can, too. If they made it, so can you. You have something to share with the world, and there is someone out there who needs to see it. So, keep creating and stop doubting.

Stop Expecting Success to Happen Overnight

When we look at photographers who seem successful, it’s easy to make the mistake of thinking they’ve always been at the top. We look at our own careers, five whole years long and full of struggles, and ask ourselves why we haven’t “made it” yet. Then, we sink into a creative depression, because despite all our hard work, we’re still having trouble paying our bills.

But success, in whatever form it takes, is complex and doesn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of hard work over time, plus a dose of luck, and it rarely happens to any two people the same way. The road your idol took isn't going to be the one that works for you, and the struggles they faced aren’t going to be the ones you’ll encounter. But whether it takes you five years, ten years, or twenty years, I can guarantee that beneath every successful photographer are mountains of failures, setbacks, and self-doubt. They didn’t become successful overnight, they fought every battle, got knocked down, and climbed back to their feet, swinging. And you can’t just get up once, you have to crawl to your feet over, and over, and over again. 

So, stop expecting yourself to meet the unrealistic expectation of immediate success; it’s a myth. Several factors must come into play, but the one thing you can be certain of is hard work over time. Don’t give up. It will be a struggle, but it will be worth it.

I know this article says 2020, but the truth is that every day, every hour is a new chance for you to be a better photographer and a better version of yourself. Work hard. Don’t give up. Run your own race. We’re going to make it.

If you could give any advice to photographers in 2020, what would it be?  

Lead image featuring model Jenae Rex.

Nicole York's picture

Nicole York is a professional photographer and educator based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. When she's not shooting extraordinary people or mentoring growing photographers, she's out climbing in the New Mexico back country or writing and reading novels.

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86 Comments
Previous comments

Amazing article. I shared it on my facebook where I know photographers like myself are guilty of all...or at least most of these.

Appreciated, Robert, thank you!

Great points...thank you for this article.

Absolutely my pleasure :)

Stop the unceasing ads and articles pumping up the newest gear and focus on the artful creativity. Stop telling us what to stop. YOU STOP!!!

Nicole thanks for posting this article. It was enjoyable and full of some hard truths.

My pleasure :)

I'm quite surprised by the negative comments, some very excessive. I have had a wonderful and long photography career and spend the last 8 years teaching it a college level. Every point written here is something I spend many hours teaching my students and encouraged creativity, but most importantly strived self reliance. No one is every going to come knocking at your door unless you have invited them smart marketing and with powerful imagery that moves them. This advice is sound, tried and tested and most of all it works. Just give it a try.

I appreciate your response, Jim :)

Nicole, I thought it was a great article. Thank you.
Tim Gallo, I also thought your response was great reading also.
Some of the other replies....whatever

Much appreciated, Keith, thank you.

Thanks mom!

So many good points that you've made here - thank you!

I see you're in Colorado Springs, and that you like to be out in the wilderness. Lucky you! I spend about 6 weeks each year in Colorado, to photograph wildlife. There is so much awesome country around there and so many cooperative wildlife subjects that I sometimes wish I lived there myself! It's good to see that you appreciate what you have around you and seek to make the most of it.

Great article Nicole York. You did forget one point though, don't waste time and energy responding to trolls!!

I try to resist, but sometimes I'm weak, lol

Outstanding article

Much appreciated!

One more: Stop relying on cheesecake clickbait to grab eyeballs.
P.S.: I realize that was snarky, and I apologize to the author. It's just that I get tired of so many articles on this site leading with T&A. I recognize the manipulation immediately and resent it. I expect better from a site that's all about creativity. Maybe the audience here isn't as sophisticated as I'd hope, or maybe the site's contributors are underestimating us.

That's not really the kind of cheesecake we are used to around here.
It is sort of a cosplay fantasy, not a bikini fantasy. On a site that skews more dudes than dudettes cheesecake works.

Define "works".

I appreciate your post script and I understand your frustration, even share it in ways that might surprise you. In fact, if you chatted with the other writers, they would probably also admit that they hate skirting the line of titles that sound contentious or click-baity but, and this is the worst part, those are the titles that get traction. Every time. I would LOVE to keep the titles purely informational without any hint of manipulation (though to be fair, no title in history--and little writing at all, for that matter--is without some purposeful manipulation on the part of the author to interest or entice) but when I do, those articles don't get as many views.
If I want to reach people, I have to interest or intrigue them, first.

It's worth considering whether, even if the manipulations attract more clicks, they're getting the KIND of audience you really want. I suppose that if clicks = $, volume trumps quality...
...in the short term.
TBH, this site is valuable enough to me that I'd gladly pay a small subscription fee to avoid the ads and clickbait. Sadly, that's not how it works these days. Remember when cable TV was new and we gladly paid for it to avoid the ads on over-the-air broadcast channels? Now we pay for cable AND have to watch ads. [sigh]

Oh yes, and I think that would be preferable, but people have bills to pay in the meantime. And luckily I receive messages from people who have found the content genuinely helpful, and I'm always grateful for that, so perhaps the title isn't as weighty in the long run if the article itself is genuinely aimed at providing a service.

Oh, and FWIW, it wasn't the title I was put off by. It was the cheesecake. Reminds me of an interview with Elvis Costello in which he expressed pride in never having used the lyrics "Oh baby" in a song. Cheesecake can be well done or badly done, but it's still cheesecake, and if that's what you're going to lead with as the appetizer, I don't expect anything more nourishing in the entrée.

You have room for a mentee in Colorado Springs?

Oh man, I wish I did! I'm so overwhelmed with stuff right now I'm having a hard time just staying on top of my own things, lol.
And I need to change my profile, I just keep forgetting. I am in Albuquerque these days.

Oh man, I wish I did! I have too much going on, though, and can barely keep my head on strait as it is, lol.
And I keep forgetting to change my profile. I'm actually in Albuquerque these days.

Excellent article. Thanks

They also need to stop using Adobe RAW for RAW files then brag about image quality

Well, good results CAN be achieved with Adobe, but I find it much easier, and the results better, with DxO PhotoLab 3 Elite and a custom camera profile.

I don’t make fun of new photographer’s work because, they’re still learning and we all started somewhere.

But I will give them shit all day for working for free, giving away all rights , and all the other infuriating things they do to dilute the value of the profession.

Thank you Nicole for taking the time to write this article. You obviously hit some nerves here as some of the comments are a bit on the ridiculous/negative side. But your advice to any new & up and coming photographer is good advice, that I wish I would have read this years ago. I've had the incredible opportunity to reinvent myself as a photographer in my 50s, and my work has been selling and I love it. Im too old to let my ego get in the way, and really value any and all advice to help me continue on (now that I'm in my 60s). Regardless of whether it may (or may not) apply to the work I'm doing etc.
Im grateful you took the time to write this article, and I appreciate what the advice, and am sure that there a lot of newbies that will make better use of their time with the things you brought up in this article -
Thank you
Joe OHaire

"some of the comments are a bit on the ridiculous/negative side."
Look in the mirror.

Ohhh you got me good!

This deserves to be printed out and hung as a reminder. Great tips! Doubt sucks.

Thank you, Michael!