Your

Comfort Zone
is Killing
Your Creativity
The other day I watched (skimmed, really) a video
on YouTube promising I’d learn about the 20 biggest
misconceptions in photography. The video had 1.2
million views.

What, I wondered, could so many photographers be

getting so wrong?

It turns out the answer included focus breathing,

reciprocal rules, sweet spots, megapixel density, the
non-existence of depth of field, and how many an-
gels can dance on the head of a pin. My eyes haven’t
glazed over like that since the last time I was put
under full anesthesia.
Twenty things (no, the 20 biggest misconceptions)
photographers get wrong and not one of them
makes a damn bit of difference to my photography.

The video left me feeling like I was taking crazy pills.

Almost 35 years as a photographer and I didn’t know
(still don’t) what in the name of Great Googly Moo-
gly he was talking about. But I can handle it. I know
that my photographs don’t rely on knowing any of
that stuff. But how distracting is this nonsense going
to be to others—people like you who just want to
make compelling, honest, authentic, creative photo-
graphs?

When photographers want to “take things to the

next level” or “up their game,” they tend to focus
on honing a skill, putting in more practice, and dig
deeper into knowledge of the tools.

“If only I could get a better grasp on this or that

technique,” we think. If only we knew more (like
WTF is focus-breathing?), preferably the secret to
this or that, we’d be better. And sometimes, this is
exactly so. Sometimes that is exactly what we need.
But not so often as we think. I think there’s some-
thing more important going on.

I think the most important thing we can do, once we

begin to grasp the basics (and this applies no matter
what your craft), is to protect our creativity with all
the strength we can summon.
I think we need to feed it and nurture it and, most
of all, keep it away from the toxic environment of
our comfort zone. Yes, learn your craft, geek out on
reciprocal rules if you must, but if you had to ration
it all out, I’d tell you to give that stuff 10% of your
effort and put the remaining 90% into anything that
will make you more creative, give you greater free-
dom, and make you more comfortable with risk.

I would tell you the single best thing you can do is

get out of your comfort zone. Get out and stay out.

The dangers of the comfort zone are well known.

Your comfort zone discourages or stops any real
learning, limiting new ideas and possibilities. It
discourages risk (at all cost) and since creativity is
about doing and making things that are new and
unknown, it can’t happen without the willingness
to risk. To risk failure. To risk wasted time. To risk
looking foolish.

The comfort zone discourages the hunger for more,

to be better, to make and do better, to try new
things.

It says this is good, let’s just stay here. If we aren’t

moving forward it’s because it’s just easier to stay
where we are, running in circles because it feels like
progress. Sure, you’re moving, but never into new
territory, and never deeper, unless you count the ruts
that you’re wearing into the floor.
 So how do you stay out of the comfort zone and
keep your creative spirit alive and well and mak-
ing photographs that feed your soul? Here are a few
ideas to ease you in.

Keep learning.
Be curious. Learn to self-learn. Google new words
and ideas, read books about people you’ve never
heard of, be open to learning about Picasso or Pol-
lock or the metaphysical poets (I’m a big fan of Ge-
rard Manley Hopkins). Expand your influences. New
ideas shouldn’t threaten us. They should intrigue
us. But follow your curiosity and not obligation. No
interest in focus-breathing? Me neither. Move on to
something that intrigues you.

Look back.
So often we fear failure; it keeps us wanting to be
comfortable because failure hurts. Not doing some-
thing right the first time stings our pride. We don’t
want to look foolish. Sure, it may hurt. But it will not
harm. In fact, it will do the opposite, the way pulling
out a splinter hurts but in the long run is better for
you on account of not getting all infected and gross
and looking hideous for the rest of your life. Look
back at times in your life when you failed initially—
when you didn’t get right on the first try. Didn’t you
bounce back? Wasn’t it easier than you expected?
Didn’t you grow in the end, and become better at
that thing?

You are more resilient than you know. Embrace new

and different and “let’s see what happens.” Embrace
initial failures (some of us just call them “lessons”).
Every creative effort starts ugly. It has to. Lean into
that. And remember, it’s just art. If you fail or fall,
you’ll bounce.

Inventory your fears.

Make a list. What are you actually afraid of? Now
take a long hard look at them. Will it really kill me if
no one likes the photographs I’m learning to make?
Do I have to be the best at this? Isn’t it OK if it takes
me a while to sort this out? What’s the worst that
could happen if you share your work and ask for
feedback? Wouldn’t you feel better if you put your-
self out there rather than keeping it all locked up
inside because of some vague fear that you won’t be
accepted? You know that people not liking your art
isn’t the same as them not liking you, right? List your
fears. Shine the light on them. And then ease in.

Ease in.
Most of us don’t just hurl ourselves into the un-
known. We’d rather test the waters, inch by inch,
than head for the high dive towers. So do it. Make a
list of the things you’d really like to do, but that are
hard to do, scary to do: the things that are just out-
side your comfort zone. Now break them down into
small steps. Find one small step and get a win under
your belt.

If you want your photographs to be more creative,

you don’t have to commit to an exhibition of mul-
tiple exposure photographs. Just go out and make
12 really bad multiple exposure photographs. That
wasn’t so hard, was it? Don’t show the world, just
make them. Laugh at the efforts that are less than
attractive. If we all just laughed at ourselves a little
more, imagine the freedom! Want to write a book
but have no idea where to begin and you’re held
back by your comfort zone? Just make a list of 10
possible titles or hypothetical outlines. Write the first
sentence. That’s all.

One small step is a win. Now do the next one.

Do different.
What would happen if you actively waged a cam-
paign against your comfort zone? If you took a new
route to work every day, if you tried food you think
you don’t like, if you went sky diving or bungee
jumping or faced some smaller fear and discovered
your fears have been lying to you all along and all
the “what ifs” those fears throw at you aren’t nearly
as bad as the “what if you stay in this comfort zone
and don’t try new things and move forward in your
skills, your tastes, your willingness to put yourself
out there and be seen in the world?”

What if the hypothetical hurts your fears warn you

away from aren’t nearly as bad as the harm that
comes from the guaranteed stagnation and atrophy
of the comfort zone?

After coaching and mentoring people for as long as I

have, and I’ve done this for as long as I can remem-
ber, I can tell you this with certainty:

Your creativity will suffer at the hands

of your comfort, and the borders of your
comfort zone are patrolled by your fears.
Those fears want you to survive; they have no inter-
est in you thriving. They’re leftovers from thousands
of years ago when actual monsters hid in the shad-
ows and not belonging to a tribe meant peril. Noth-
ing you do in your art-making or the pursuit of your
craft is about surviving. It’s about thriving. That’s a
conversation in which your fears have no idea what
they’re talking about.

Want to make better photographs and be happi-

er making them? Listen to your longings and your
hopes, your curiosity and your whims, rather than
your fears. Take daily steps out of the comfort
zone and into the unknown where you risk, learn,
and grow. Where you put your feet on unexplored
ground and make things for the joy of making them.

The biggest misconception in photogra-

phy is still this: that better cameras and
more knowledge make better photo-
graphs.
It has always been better photographers—human
beings who aren’t scared to try new things and bare
their souls—who do that. In The Soul of the Camera,
I wrote, “The camera on its own is a wonder, but in
the hands of the poet, the storyteller, the seeker of
change, or the frustrated artist, it can create some-
thing alive that touches our humanity.” That only
happens when we emerge from the protective shell
of our comfort zones.

For the Love of the Photograph,

David
My
Photography,
My
Rules
You know how I’m always going on and on about
how there are no rules in photography? I’m going to
back-pedal a bit on that because the more I look at
my own creative life, the more I realize that I have
some very important rules. Rules without which I
don’t make the best photographs of which I’m capa-
ble. Rules that keep me centered and grounded and
make me more creative, not less.

But they’re my rules. They are the creative bound-

aries on which I have signed off personally and to
which I willingly submit myself, and they’re rules I
break at my own peril, which I discover every time
I decide to go AWOL or get lazy about them. I dis-
covered these rules over years of working with my-
self, knowing my own strengths and weakness, and
finding out early that I flail around creatively when I
allow myself the luxury of having no rules at all.

You need to find your own rules—not anyone

else’s—but perhaps you’ll see something helpful in
these.

Constraints
Create challenging constraints for your work, as
soon as possible. Define the terms. My latest project
is simple but well constrained and makes it easier
not to let myself off the hook or take the easy way
out. I choose constraints that challenge me, that
force me to learn and risk and fail. I do not choose
the easy way, because that bores me quickly and I’ve
never created good work while bored.

What could these constraints be for you? You could

start with time: every Wednesday you photograph
for two hours, no exceptions. Or every time guests
visit, you make their portrait. Make it a rule. Or de-
cide this year you’re only working in black and white
or with one lens. Or that for this project you’re only
using natural light. Challenging constraints make
better photographs (eventually) but you have to
choose them and lean into the challenge.
Constraints give me a problem to solve, but far from
restraining me, they make me more creative; within
their boundaries, I am free to run amok with all the
creative anarchy I want.

Trust Your Gut.

It’s not infallible, and it has to be willing to learn, but
trusting my gut to lead me to new ideas and in new
directions is the only way to get to work that is truly
my own. When I doubt, when I’m just not sure or
am feeling overwhelmed with options (which is of-
ten), I can tell you that I listen to my gut. Every time
I have transgressed on this one, every time I have
played it safe, listened to the crowd and hedged my
bets, I have made work that is mediocre and, worse,
not truly mine.

Celebrate Small Wins.

Is it the end of the day and you wrote that thing you
needed to write or made that one photograph you
wanted to make? Time for a glass of wine. You fin-
ished that chapter, or took another step forward in
that body of work you’re creating? Let’s go to dinner.
Every big win is only ever the accumulation of small
wins, so anything I can do to get myself jazzed about
small wins and taking next steps, I do it. If I think of
the pressure to “get that project done,” it’s paralyzing.
If I focus on small wins, piece by piece, it happens.
Creativity is a work ethic more than it is a talent.
Never Compare.
When I was about 13 years old, my school an-
nounced a cartoon contest. I saw my future laid out
before me, and the contest (specifically, winning that
contest) was the first step on a journey that I was
sure would lead to fortune and fame.

I worked hard on that entry, perfecting a caricature

of the music teacher I liked so much. I submitted my
entry long before the deadline and waited, using the
time to work on my acceptance speech. When the
winners were announced, I could hardly sit still—
until it became known that my cartoon was the only
entry. I was OK with winning by default, was pre-
pared to change my press release, even to forgo my
planned celebrations and just tuck my award quietly
into its gilded frame and hang it prominently in my
(mother’s) home. What I was not prepared for was
the announcement that I had won second place.

Second place. In a contest with, apparently, only my-

self.

True story. I tell it to you because we’re often told

not to compare ourselves to others but that “the
only person you compare yourself to is yourself.” It
sounds wise, unless you’re the kind of guy who wins
second place when competing against himself.
Even comparing yourself to the person you see in
the mirror can be toxic, because we don’t see our-
selves any more objectively than we see others.

We see failure and fear and secrets held too tight for
too long. We see the ghosts of the past and the hopes
of the future, but do many of us really ever see our-
selves as we are? Probably not. And definitely not
when comparing ourselves, whether that’s to others
or to ourselves.

Don’t compare. Not with others and not with your-

self. Don’t look for similarities, don’t look for differ-
ences. Don’t size yourself up, don’t allow yourself to
feel better or worse based on where you are, where
you’ve been or where others are or are not. Why
must we know which rung of the ladder we stand
upon? What good does it do us? More importantly,
what harm does it set us up for? If you’re me, plenty.

One more story. When I was a kid, I was riding my

bike, though doing so while looking over my shoul-
der (don’t ask). Suddenly I was lying on the ground
with a splitting headache looking up at a car. I
couldn’t believe it: I had been hit by a car. But when
I stood up and shook it off, the car was parked—no
driver in sight, just a big, head-shaped dent in the
back.

The car didn’t hit me; I hit the car.

In hindsight, it seems obvious that I shouldn’t have
been looking over my shoulder. But if I’d been look-
ing at myself in a mirror, I still would have hit the
car. In this dodgy metaphor, the former is what hap-
pens when we compare ourselves to others; the latter
is what happens when we compare ourselves to the
image we see of ourselves. Neither should be mistak-
en for looking forward.

Look at your work. Find joy in it. Learn from others,

sure, but keep your eyes on the work. Don’t worry
about what others are doing or thinking. Don’t wor-
ry about whether you’re getting better or doing it
right.

Do your work. Let it challenge you, get it done, trust

your gut, and celebrate the small wins. You’ll find
your way just fine.

For the Love of the Photograph,

David
How to
Please Your
Audience
Every Time.
We live in strange times. Never before has an art-
ist of any stripe been able to put their work into the
world so broadly and so quickly. Never before has
an artist been able to hear every voice that cares to
praise, criticize, or issue feedback with neither con-
text nor conversation. Most often it’s just a binary
reaction: a like or not, a heart or no heart. And the
subtle shades of human reaction and emotion and
all our complexity goes out the window and gets
replaced by comments like “Nice pic!” or worse, an
emoji.

Not only can this suffocate our creativity, it can lead

us to misunderstand who our audience is. Surround-
ed by the metrics of social media or the dozen peo-
ple in your camera club, it’s easy to begin thinking
that they are your audience. They are not. Not at
first. You are.

You are your own first and most important audience.

That’s how you please your audience. By making
your art for you.

But how easily do we forget that fact when we put

our work into the world and get mixed reactions
or no reactions at all, especially when we put it out
there so soon after we make it and are still unsure
about what we ourselves think and feel about what
we’ve just made?

I think the biggest struggle of the artist is to know

his or her own voice, and I’m going to discuss that in
the next Contact Sheet I send you on June 09. It’s an
important struggle, but I think parallel to it we must
come to grips with who our audience is.

For whom do you make your art? If you don’t know

this, or mistakenly believe that it is anyone anywhere
who looks at your photographs and has the means
to tell you what they think about it, you will have a
tough time ever discovering and taking responsibili-
ty for your own voice.

Voice is about authenticity and you will not create

authentic work when your first question is, “What
do they want?” instead of, “What do I want?”
 Of course, we all hope that if we answer the latter
question every day with our art—in the most sin-
cere, vulnerable way—that the crowds will love us
and everything we make. So let me make it easier
for you: they will not. Some will. A few people with
whom your work resonates will eventually applaud,
and that feels good. That audience might even grow.
That feels even better. But it must still not be the
point, and it must never seduce you.

If you want to make your art for your audience and

have a chance at that audience loving your work and
resonating with it, and—best of all—discovering
something of you in it, you must make it for your-
self.

You must be your first and only audience. That

means not worrying how others will react to what
you make. It means not putting your ego into your
work so much that when the world out there doesn’t
so much as look sideways at your art, you don’t mis-
take the rejection of your art for the rejection of
your self.

We live in a big, big world. The vast majority of our

over-populated planet will not applaud. And like
you, they have other things on their minds.

But rather than letting that deflate you, consider the

freedom that gives you to do things your way, to ask
yourself the questions most important to you alone
and answer them with your art.

And here’s the miracle of art: when we do create just

for ourselves, and we do it in the truest way possi-
ble, there might be some person that is touched in
some way by your honesty. Your search for beauty.
Your unflinching gaze. Your willingness to ask the
hard questions. The astonishingly rare courage to be
yourself.

If you want to know what the world wants from your

art, that’s it. Right there.

Your art must be about you, and for you.

It’s about the meeting place of that honest soul and

the places, times, and circumstances of life. Art is the
mashup of you and life: a collaboration. And it can
only be a gift to others, help others heal, or be a light
to them if it begins not with them, but with you. Be-
cause you are all you really know. You are the source
of your art. And you must be the first and most im-
portant audience for whom that art is made.

That is where you must find your joy. In the making.

In the discovery. In getting your hands dirty and un-
earthing some new thing about yourself and the way
you see the world. If you search for it there, you’ll
find it.
If you search for joy in the applause or recognition of
even one other person before you find it in yourself,
not only might you never find it, you might discover
the art you make begins to have less and less of your
own voice within it.

You are your own North Star—your own

demanding audience—and the only one
that can make the art you most want,
or need, to see in the world. Let that be
enough. Let that be the bold source of
your own voice.
Don’t look over your shoulder at what others are do-
ing; don’t cock your ear to one side to better hear the
reactions of others or the longed-for applause. Make it
for you, and for now, only for you.

And if you must seek feedback, as an earnest student

of any craft must do to grow and learn, then do so
from those few voices you yourself know and trust and
choose to listen to. Stop asking the f*cking internet and
crowdsourcing your joy; nothing will dilute your voice
and the love of your craft so heartbreakingly quickly.

For the Love of the Photograph,

David
Is
Perfection
Paralyzing
You?
After teaching photography for about a dozen years
without stopping to take a break, it’s become clear to
me that after a year with the camera in our hands,
the primary problems for most of us as photogra-
phers are not photographic problems at all.

The problem is that we think they are, and so we

look for photographic solutions. New filter. New
lens. Fast memory cards. Better Lightroom presets
or Photoshop plug-ins. All of them might solve one
problem or another, but they will not solve problems
that are fundamentally creative.

On a technical level, there are things to be done to

improve our photographs; things we can do to keep
them sharp or retain details in highlights. But those
can be learned quickly, and for most of us, a year is
sufficient to get the very basics. There are manuals
for such things.

But there is no user manual for our creativity, which

is a good thing—because if such a manual existed, it
would reduce us and our best creative work to for-
mulaic crap.

But that hasn’t stopped me from wishing we all un-

derstood our creative process a little more.

Even a simple understanding of how we work cre-

atively would take us a long way in employing even
the most basic of our technical skills. It’s not that
we don’t know how to use the camera, it’s that hav-
ing learned those basics, we have no idea what to
do with them. It is our creativity that takes us those
next steps.

One of the greatest barriers to creativity and to life is

fear. That fear manifests itself in many ways but one
of the more destructive is the perfectionism so many
of us are paralyzed by.

My friend James Victore is known for saying feck

perfuction!

Perfectionism isn’t a good thing because the goal of

“perfect” isn’t healthy. It’s toxic. It’s tyrannical. It de-
mands more than most humans are capable of giv-
ing, paralyzing us in our efforts to create, to learn,
to live more gracefully with the limits and foibles of
who we are.

Forgive me for putting it this way, but it’s the bastard

love child of a protestant work ethic and the fact that
we celebrate the work of artistic genius but never
acknowledge the process responsible for that work.
We are told, if not by others then frequently by our-
selves, “Unless we can create that brilliant thing, and
unless we can make it perfect, don’t bother.” And we
forget that any good thing is almost always a result
of a long, slow refinement of something that almost
always starts ugly.

Perfectionism makes a god of the flaw-

less and an outcast of the flawed, the im-
perfect.
But there is a meaning to the word “perfect” that we
often forget. Sure, it can mean “flawless,” but it can
also mean “done.” Completed. Signed. Shipped. Put
out into the world to be loved for what it is.

Our desire for a flawless and unblemished kind of

perfection gets in the way of—and so often prevents
us from—accomplishing the other kind of perfec-
tion: done.
For me, the difference in the two ideas is this: striv-
ing for perfection of the first kind means others get
to say whether it is or isn’t. Others get to weigh in
on what the flaws are and how grievous they might
be. People you never met get to say if you’ve accom-
plished what you’ve worked so hard for. They will in-
spect it for a lack of flaws, based on god only knows
what criteria (they won’t be yours), completely ne-
glecting the content of what you’ve made or what
you’re trying to say.

Defining perfect as done means you get to say so:

only you get to say it’s done. Complete. Warts and
all. Rough edges. And no one gets to take that from
you.

And what’s beautiful about that perspective is that

it’s incredibly empowering. It places the standard for
my work into my own hands and allows me to em-
brace who I am, and where I am as an artist, and to
aim high but according to my own vision.

The Japanese have a concept that honours imperfec-

tion, brokenness, and decay called wabi-sabi. There’s
an implicit belief that a thing gets more beautiful as
it gets scarred from use and imbued with its own
story. That’s my own imperfect understanding of
wabi-sabi; it too is probably rough around the edges,
but I find it beautiful nonetheless.
A rejection of the obsessive pursuits of perfection
and perfectionism is not an endorsement of sloppy,
lazy work or a rejection of excellence of craft; perfec-
tion and excellence are not the same things.

Wabi-sabi seems to be a formal way of embracing

that. A way of saying something can be done and
can be excellent not only despite the flaws—but be-
cause of them.

How many projects have you stalled on or given up

too soon because the start was messy and contained
no hints of the perfection you hoped for?

How many times have you shied away from sharing

your work because it wasn’t perfect and therefore
wasn’t good?

How many times have you questioned your process

and your progress but it felt like things were getting
worse before they might get better?

I’ve come to see my own perfectionism as laziness.

It’s cowardly and allows me to abdicate my responsi-
bility to finish my work. It gives us a noble-sounding
excuse for never shipping and facing all the fears
associated with that. It’s an unwillingness to do the
work and see where it goes and wrestle with the nu-
ances, the doubts, and the detours that are not just
difficult parts of the creative life, but necessary parts.
Because it’s in wrestling with those things, with
whatever skill our craft gives us, that our work be-
comes what it is.

Perfectionism is a childish response, itself imperfect,

incomplete. It pouts in the corner when it can’t get
something done “right” the first time and so it never
learns the lessons of craft and character that come
from wrestling the muse to the ground and making
something of nothing.

Perfectionism will stop us before we get to the good

stuff, which is inevitably a little on the ugly side long
before it shows signs of promise. Ironically (assum-
ing you choose to accept the same re-definition of
perfection as I did years ago), perfectionism will
stop us from ever getting to perfect. To complete.
Done. And until it is finished, no work of art can be
evaluated by anyone—not even you.

So don’t write it off before it’s finished. Don’t listen

to the voices that tell you to stop because you’re not
there yet. Keep going.

For the Love of the Photograph,

David
10
Upgrades
You Need
to Make
I spent last month photographing Venice, then
London briefly, with the Leica Q—a beautiful full-
frame mirrorless camera with a fixed 28mm lens.
It’s brilliant; one of my favourite cameras, ever. The
sharpness of the lens is astonishing, as are the ton-
al qualities, the contrast, and the speed of focus. It’s
gorgeous. The photographs it makes are amazing,
too. And if you’re asking me if you should upgrade
in 2019, the answer is yes! But it’s not what you
think. Keep reading.

For years I’ve been telling anyone who would lis-

ten that it’s not about the gear. And for years some
of you have nodded knowingly, while others have
pushed back telling me it was easy for me to say;
after all, I already had a bag full of gear. But isn’t it
exactly the guy with the bag full of gear that you
should trust when he tells you it’s really not the gear
that matters? The one who says, yes, the gear has its
place, but it’s not the thing that will stand between
you and the photographs, and I should know be-
cause I’ve tried it all? Isn’t it that guy who has no
stake in flogging gear or shilling for one brand or
another that you can trust when he tells you for your
sake alone, and the sake of your craft, that the gear
you already have is enough? That you are enough?

One of my students had last minute doubts as he

packed for this year’s MentorSeries workshop in
Venice. He wanted to bring it all: two cameras, four
lenses, his fancy new tripod. “Leave it at home,” I
said. “Go light.” So he brought it all. Of course he
did. And at the end of the week I asked him if he’d
used anything more than one camera and one lens.
He didn’t. Sure, he could have. And certainly—had
he left it all at home—there might have been times
when the scene just begged him for a different lens:
the one sitting at home.

But isn’t that always the case? Of course it is. But

when that other lens is at home, you stoically accept
what you can’t change and get on with solving the
problem and making the photographs that are pos-
sible right then with the gear at hand. It’s you that
makes it happen. Your creativity. Your brain. You can
make great photographs with what you have.

I shot my entire time in Venice with one cam-

era and one lens. And not one of those lenses that
covers every possible focal length from 18 to 300,
either. That’s not what I call a constraint, though
there’s nothing wrong with a lens like that. But it
wouldn’t have proved my point; I still created work
I love. That’s my point (I know, I know, it’s always
my point). It matters not a lick that the camera I had
was a Leica. It matters that we accept that creativity
works within the constraints we give it, so long as
we work it. Use a Fuji X100, or a Nikon D5 with a
50mm, or your Canon Rebel with the kit lens that
you can’t afford to upgrade. Don’t like the high-ISO
noise? Make a photograph that’s so good, so capti-
vating, that no one notices it! If noise is what people
notice, noise is not your biggest problem.

Want better photographs? Of course you do. We all

do. But it’s probably not our gear, or lack of it, or
how old it is, that’s standing in the way: it’s our ex-
cuses and lack of creativity. How do I know? Because
we have the most advanced cameras ever (even that
ancient Canon Digital Rebel the people in your cam-
era club look down their noses at) and we’re still not
making photographs that are stronger than those
made by photographers from 20, 30, or 100 years
ago. It’s not the gear.
Make this the year you never once blame the cam-
era.

Make it the year you embrace whatever constraints

the gear (or life) presents you with, and then get to
work. Work around it or work with it. But work.

If you want to upgrade, do it. You probably need to.

We all do. But don’t upgrade your camera.

And if you do upgrade your gear, you should prob-

ably still keep reading, because your better camera
will still not make better pictures. That’s still your
job.

Here are 10 upgrades that’ll take you so much fur-

ther this year than upgrading your gear:

Upgrade your skills.

Learn a new aspect of the craft. Not seven of them:
one. Learn to work with motion or learn to light a
portrait. Learn to use the exposure triangle like a
freaking ninja. Take a workshop that will challenge
you. But really learn it. Go deep with it. Spend the
year mastering it and not merely dabbling. We dab-
ble too much.
Upgrade your Composition.
Don’t look at 1,000 images a day on Instagram. Look
at one or two and figure out why they work and how
you can replicate that effect or feeling. Don’t end
2019 without understanding how to give your imag-
es greater depth, energy, balance, or story. I’ll be of-
fering my course, The Compelling Frame, once more
in September; that might be a great place to begin
your study of visual language.

Upgrade your creative process.

The photographer’s brain is her best and strongest
tool. Learn to think creatively, not merely technical-
ly. Want a great place to begin that study? Consider
reading my book about creativity, A Beautiful An-
archy. However you do it, learn what it means to be
creative and how to upgrade that process for your-
self.

Upgrade Your Work

Upgrade your willingness to make more work, to
go deeper, to shoot a personal project that you push
through even when it gets hard or on which you pla-
teau during the boring bits that every creative proj-
ect has once the initial spark fades and you’re left
alone, without the muse, to make the magic yourself.
Upgrade Your Patience
Upgrade your ability to sit in one place and real-
ly see that place. Learn to quiet the voice that tells
you you’re missing something by not being some-
where else. Be present. Be receptive. There are a lot
of things the camera can’t do, things that are our job
alone (ahem, I wrote a book about this, too), and
this is one of them.

Upgrade Your Process

Upgrade your ability and willingness to make more
sketch images—more failures and what-ifs—and less
worrying about what others think. Make way more
photographs and see where they lead you.

Upgrade Your Craft

Upgrade the gamut of your craft. Photography is so
much more than a digital capture and some tweaks
in Adobe Lightroom. Save the money on the lens
or camera you were going to buy and get a printer.
Learn to print.

Upgrade your output.

I don’t mean more posts on Instagram. Do fewer of
those and slow down instead: apply your creativity
to longer, deeper edits. Make a book. Print a mono-
graph. Get your photographs off your hard drives
and into the world of the haptic and the tangible.

Upgrade your mentors.

There is a world of astonishing photographers out
there and they need not be alive to learn from them.
Stop taking advice from that guy who bought a cam-
era two years ago and now leads workshops and
cranks out Lightroom presets. And don’t only listen
to me, either. Study the masters. Buy a new book
of photographs every month or so and really study
them. Get books by photographers you’ve never
heard of. Ask others what they recommend. Make
the Magnum website a place to discover new names,
both present and past. My latest discovery is Willy
Ronis, and Willy Ronis by Willy Ronis is fantastic.
Of course, you could also pick up a copy of one of
my own books, SEVEN, or Pilgrims & Nomads.

Upgrade your experiences.

Forget that new camera: save the money and go to
Venice. Or take a week off and make portraits, or
go to the coast or the next town over, or go see your
kids or your aging father. Do things that matter to
you, that stir the wonder in you, that challenge you.
Do it at home, or travel, it doesn’t matter—but do
it. And then photograph those things. Don’t be se-
duced by the idea that the better camera will make
better photographs; they’ll just be sharper images of
the same old stuff. Spend the money on living the
experiences your creative soul longs for and explore
those experiences with the camera you know.

The gear you have is enough and probably will be for

quite some time. Upgrade the photographer instead.
It’ll be cheaper, less frustrating, and here’s what mat-
ters: it’ll be the one upgrade that changes both your
experience of photographing and the photographs
themselves. I hope you’ll give me a chance to be part
of that in 2019, but whether or not you take one
of my courses, read one of my books, I wish you a
deeper, more creative, and more rewarding 2019.

For the Love of the Photograph,

David
Get
More.
These 5 articles are a sample of the bi-weekly emails
I send out as The Contact Sheet, a chance to give a
heart-felt kick in the pants to creative photographers
who want more from their photographic life than
images that are merely sharp with great histograms.
You can get your own subscription free at MyCon-
tactSheet.com.

My name is David duChemin, a photographer for

over 30 years and a passionate fan of the amateur. You
can find more from me at CraftandVision.com or find
my work at DavidduChemin.com. You can find my
books, like Within The Frame, The Soul of the Cam-
era, and The Visual Toolbox, on Amazon or wherever
great books are sold.