Why Do My Photos Suck

Do you ever go out to shoot and come back empty handed….or go for weeks, more worse months and although you are recognizing scenes falling into place in front of your eyes, you click your camera’s shutter and your photos still come out shitty…Your photos suck, floating around social media without much likes, comments, or any engagement whatsoever compared to your fellow street photography friend who makes it look so effortless on a day to day basis. Here are some reasons why your photos make suck (I have lots of experience with this)…

No emotion

There are times where you have to be on the lookout for emotions or things happening on the street. Perhaps its a hostile situation or a photograph of a happy group enjoying each others company. Other times you will need to inject yourself into the situation to create an emotion. Flash happens to do this because you get close to your subject and the strong flash will cause the subject to naturally react to your camera (putting their hand up to block face, shocked look or surprise expression, turning away from the camera). There is nothing cool about your photograph, nothing about your photograph interests your viewer…what makes a good photograph in my opinion…story, framing, lighting, & color.

Too Busy 

Your photo is too busy. Yes, you might have caught an awesome moment of your subject but things around them do not support the main focus or distract us from it. Having a clean background always helps draw people in and also helps keep your viewers attention a bit longer.

What’s Happening

What’s the story in your frame? What’s happening? Or did you just take a photo of someone walking. Come on you can do better than that.

Ok So What?

Ok so you took a photo of someone you walked past by. Nothing about the person’s gesture, facial expression, or even clothes keeps us interested….or better yet wantibg more…The background doesn’t applifiy the foreground….the foreground doesn’t applify the background…If you are restricting or better yet limiting your viewer’s to use their imagination, in which allows them to create their own story then its pointless. If that’s the case just look at photographs of the daily local paper. Bottom line is that it looks like any other photo swimming around the internet.

Bad technique

You didn’t get close enough, it feels emotionless. And you cropped on a wide shot (I can easily tell). You didn’t stay wide enough to include other details within the scene that’d probably help convey your story. The framing is crooked and by the looks of it, it seems that you hesitated before snapping the shot. The crooked-ness doesn’t add to the photo.

You fucked up

Your shot is blurry. The subject matter is out of focus. Live and learn. Moving on.

You Didn’t Take Risk

Something inside you were afraid to make the photograph the way you wanted to or simply you just couldn’t conceptualize the shot right at that moment. You’re thinking too much in this case. Just shut up and shoot (overshoot).

 Stop Titling Your Photos

Stop with the titles. It will not make your bad photo any better. Let the viewer make up their own title on how they interpret your photo…isnt that whst photography is about….