Twenty-One Ways to Improve Your Artwork
1.) Shoot more than you do; print more than you do; and be a ruthless editor. I’m serious. There is a great deal to be gained in practice . Besides, relentless practice does have a twin sister known as luck. If you are not throwing out ten finished prints for every one you exhibit you’re not being critical enough. If you are not shooting 100 images for every one you print, you are not being energetic enough.
2.) Avoid bulls-eye composition whenever possible. Art is supposed to have meaning, emotion, power, or magic. Don’t merely show what the subject is; show what it isn’t, show what it means, show why it is, how it is, for whom it is, where it is, and/or when it is.
3.) Think in two-dimensions. Learn to see flat. Learn to see edges and shapes instead of details and colors. Squint and look at the world through your eyelashes so the details dissolve. Or, try looking through a lightly frosted piece of plastic. See your composition in terms of its large masses first, and let the film reveal the details. Learn that composition is about shapes and that texture is about details.
4.) Move closer. Move even closer. Use wider-angled lenses and get closer. The best photographs are almost always ones in which the viewer feels directly involved in the world in the image, and this happens most successfully with direct engagement. If 30% of your images are made with a wide-angle lens and 70% with a telephoto, reverse this ratio and you will find your photographs improve dramatically.
5.) Photography is part art and part science. Limit the number of cameras you own, especially early in your career. Learn thoroughly what your materials will do and don’t get seduced by the idea that better photographs reside in better equipment. All the great photographs in history were made with more primitive camera equipment than you currently own.
6.) Work on projects. Make lots of images and look deeper. Rephotograph things you’ve already photographed. Allow the images to unfold as you work the project repeatedly. Every project, no matter what the project, requires research – the kinds of research you do in the library as well as in the field. Read, study, ask questions, look at the work of those who’ve gone before you, think, ask questions, listen some more, and ask more questions. Write things down. If a project doesn’t occupy a serious percentage of a notebook full of notes, you probably haven’t done enough to think about the project before you pull out the camera.
7.) Start with the image or the project and figure out which tools will best help you to succeed. If you find you are constantly needing new equipment, review #5 above and be honest about whether or not you are choosing the right projects.
8.) Attend workshops. Read books. Seek out the advice of experienced photographers. If you want to make great photographs, look at great photographs and talk to great photographers. Be someone’s apprentice for a while. Assign yourself the task of reproducing great photographs as closely as you can. Learn from the masters, but don’t become them.
9.) Work through the compulsories. It has truly been said that to see farther than others you should stand on the shoulders of giants. Great photographers and artists before you have made work that survives today as a testament to their creativity. In order for you to carry their torch, you must first trod their path. Don’t be discouraged if it takes you years to learn what they already know; it took them years to learn from those who came before them. Study history. Know the conventions, the rules, the clichés, the techniques – know the mind of those who have already asked and answered your questions.
10.) Finish it. There is nothing to be gained by having the potential to be great. Opportunities will unfold as if by magic. But if your best project is, for example, your 10th project, there is no way you could have gotten there until you completed the first nine. There is no faster way, no more efficient way, to get to your life’s best work than to finish the necessary work you need to do that prepares you for your eventual best work. Finish it, let go of it, move on.
11.) Realize that creativity does not work on a clock. Use a memo recorder. Carry paper and pen. Be disciplined about capturing odd thoughts at odd moments when they pop up. Do photography (or at least think photography) every day. Don’t be surprised if your best and most creative ideas happen when you least expect them.
12.) Let go of photography and make art. The objective of photography as a fine art pursuit is not to accumulate artifacts that will impress collectors and curators. Ultimately, your real work is to connect your Self to the world. In doing so, you will pass on to the viewer an artifact which connects them to the world and back to you. Ultimately, if your work does not move someone, it does not move anything.
13.) Read books, attend exhibitions, subscribe to magazines and develop your own personal mental gallery of images, image-makers, imaging trends, and likes and dislikes. The more you know about other photographers, the more you’ll know about yourself.
14.) Ignore advice from others if they tell you how to do it their way. There is no more useless critique than when the comment starts out, “If it were my picture I would have done...” The best critics will tell you what it is they see in your photograph and leave it up to you to decide whether or not what they see is a function of their unique vision or your success or failure in making the image you intended.
15.) Live with it for a while before going public. Create a space in your home or your studio where you can thumbtack lots of pictures to the wall. Keep them there, look at them repeatedly, look at them at different times of day, in different light, in different moods. The process of doing so will likely lead you to try printing variations, cropping variations, and even entirely new approaches with a given image.
16.) Figure out a way to make it happen on your own. Don’t let the lack of resources get in your way. Do not let limitations prevent you from doing your art. Do not rely solely on the generosity of others. To do so will mean that your work can only progress when someone else wills it. Ultimately, no one cares about your artwork or your artistic progress more than you.
17.) Think clearly about your objectives. Which do you care about more: making images the public loves or making images that you must? Clearly knowing which is more important to you makes everything else easier.
18.) Photography is not a group activity. Learn to work alone, without distractions.
19.) Don’t photograph what is “photographable.” Photograph what interests you, even if it is impossible to photograph. It is almost impossible to make a great photograph of something that doesn’t interest you.
20.) Think from your subject’s point of view. Think from your audience’s point of view. Think about what you are communicating. Think about how this will look in the passage of time. Think about what’s on the edges, just inside, just outside the photograph. Think about what you have said. Think about what you haven’t said. Think about what people will think you have said, and what they’ll think you haven’t said. Most importantly, know when to think and when to suspend thinking on purpose. Art without thought is incomplete. Art with thought is incomplete.
21.) Remember, art is not about artwork. Art is about life. To become a better artist, first and foremost become a better person – not in the moral sense, but rather in the complete sense. Remember that the greatest artist is not the one with the best technique, but the one with the most human heart.
