Friday, December 19, 2014

The Pain of Failure or an Ache of Missed Chance: What’s better for a Photographer?


“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying”.  (Michael Jordan)We already know that there are two main sources of motivation: inspiration and pain.
Here we are going to talk about the pain of failure.

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”. (Thomas Edison)


Failure is an unavoidable part of the human life. It is often a necessary precondition of human achievements.
Great people are ready to accept failure.


It’s a well known fact that after more than 10,000 failed experiments, the famous American inventor and businessman Thomas Edison was not discouraged from achieving his goal of inventing an electric light source.  After years of hard work he succeeded with the invention of the light bulb.

“I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work”. (Thomas Edison)
It’s the great quote which can be a guideline for every creative individual.

A definition of failure/success in photography is subjective and vague because photographers are not athletes that have concrete, substantiated goals: faster, higher and stronger.
All artists deal with failure regularly. But we can’t be sure if it’s a true failure. For example, the impressionists were considered failures by the critics at the 19th century since they violated the rules of traditional painting and this new style was disapproved. Later such painters as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille were declared the great painters.

This photograph reminds  me the style of impressionists.

But even if failure is a true failure do not let it paralyze you. It could be a photography technical failure or a personal failure, learn from them and move on.

As long as you are creating, that is all that matters.
I wish you to be inspired by these wonderful quotes by Sam Abell:

“Above all, it's hard learning to live with vivid mental images of scenes I cared for and failed to photograph. It is the edgy existence within me of these unmade images that is the only assurance that the best photographs are yet to be made”.

“A mad, keen photographer needs to get out into the world and work and make mistakes”.

“Whether working or not, photographers are looking, seeing, and thinking about what they see, a habit that is both a pleasure and a problem, for we seldom capture in a single photograph the full expression of what we see and feel. It is the hope that we might express ourselves fully - and the evidence that other photographers have done so - that keep us taking pictures”.
Thank you for reading!

Feel free to comment and share.
Have a great day!

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