Mistakes make great photographers

If you’ve been one of my students, you will remember I tell you to save your mistakes and try to reproduce the interesting aspeccts of those mistakes, or use them to work out what went wrong so that you can shoot differently next time? Here’s an extract of a TED talk that says something similar.


Don’t forget, it is your mistakes that you will find the germs of your personal style and not by following teachers’ photographic or videographic instructions to the letter (although of course you need to understand the basics). Go to different teachers to learn different styles and approaches. After all, photography is an art, and all good photographers have their own way of doing and seeing things, but you won’t develop your own personal style by listening to them. You won’t even get your own style by working out how other photographers have obtained their images, although that is a great way to develop your own artistic vocabulary. You’ll develop a unique personal style by incorporating everything you’ve learned, but mainly by looking for the good stuff in your worst mistakes, by working out from the mistakes how to do things right and then by experimenting more.