When you look in the mirror, how do you feel?
What do you think?
Who do you see?
If you’re like most people, you’re self-critical: you see imperfections, flaws, mistakes, regrets, things that need to be changed, things you feel powerless to change.
Now, flip the script:
When your best friend looks at you, who do they see?
What do they think?
How do you make them feel?
The mirror is two-dimensional, and often, so is our negative impression of ourselves.
But the people who love us see us fully, in three dimensions – both literally and figuratively. They see our wonderful depth: our wit, our caring, our kindness, our compassion, our intelligence, our humor, our passion, our curiosity, our creativity, our beauty much deeper and richer and more robust than the superficial.
How we as artists see our photography is often the same:
We are eternally unsatisfied, even sometimes disgusted, by the art we make. We see only two dimensions: our art compared to the best art we’ve ever seen.
Again, flip the script:
When your best clients look at your art, what do they see? How do they feel? How does it make them feel?
You will always be your own worst critic.
The Superpower here is (as usual) self-awareness: Know that you are ambitious and thus self-critical, but also that your lens isn’t true.
How you feel about your photography is not how your best clients and potential clients feel. You do no one any favors, you share no blessings with the world, when you hide your work (and your self) from those who would be most blessed by it.
Balance these – ambition and awareness – and give yourself permission to stop feeling so damn bad about yourself as an artist and professional.
Do you struggle with self-defeating negativity? E-mail me at james@banderaoutlaw.com and let me know your story.
James Michael Taylor
www.parttimephoto.com