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I think I would produce better landscapes if I could only get over my resistance based on the notion that it has all been done and become cliche. It is hard to move past the overdone shots if you don't do them yourself in order to see how to move past.

Time, and time alone.

I'm dilluting my time to much, my photography shares my time with an extensive involvement in the swedish pirate party, more the twice the usual study rate (Currently studying at 250% speed - law and B&M), friends, videogames and other projects.

I wish I had twice the time every day, but I doubt I'd be able to keep less busy :) 

I would improve my photo skills if I had not washed and dried my only camera

I consider myself an amatuer photographer/hobbyist, and I have a lot of room for improvement. I think what is preventing me are two things. First, lack of interesting subject matter. I am a student at a University and don't have time to go out into the world and shoot much because almost all my time is taken up in school. What I do get to shoot is stuff around my house, like my pets. While, I have many pictures that I will cherish for a long time now, any time I shoot anything it seems like I get the same stuff every time because I have done it before.

Secondly, I have this odd anxiety about taking my camera out into the world. When I do have time to hang out with my friends and stuff, I don't take my camera with me. For starters some of my closest friends are buddig photographers and better than me, however I have better equipment. So if I do take it out they always want to borrow it. Also I feel odd taking pictures in their presencse because I just feel defeated. Also I just have anxiety about taking my camera out into the world and fearing what the public might have to say or how they would react if I were to take their picture.

I really think that sums it up.

I would like to improve my portrait skills if I wasn't too shy to ask people to take part. [Same as the article, I know.]

It's not just photography, it's everything and it's not just me, it's true for everyone:

I would '....' if only I was not so afraid.

It's the fear part. Anything else you say is just an expression of that, with anything, in anything, for anything.

I am a very amateur hobbyist and would really like to understand photography better.  I would improve if I 1. Could find a mentor whom I could spend time talking with and ask questions of.  and 2. was much better about post production and critquing my own shots.

I have years taking photos, but need tos learn more and more.

Particulary I want to improve my composition and my models management.

Shane, I fully agree with you on the anxiety about taking the camera out into the world, though my issue is that I'm afraid of breaking it or don't want to be weighed down by this giant thing when I would rather be dancing (and I *have* to keep it on me at all times; I mean that is an expensive and important-to-me piece of equipment!).

I also have a habit when shooting digital of taking a ton of pictures of the same subject ("spraying around" I suppose) from different angles; the way I think about composition when I do that doesn't seem poised to get me the best shots when it's a time-sensitive situation.

One way I'm working on dealing with both of these things is having just bought a Golden Half toy plastic camera (via Photojojo.com) which fits in my pocket, weighs nothing, and comes everywhere with me.  Because it's a film camera and a half frame, I don't know what my pictures looked like until I get them developed, and I also don't want to take two photos of the same thing because they might end up on the same print! I feel like playing with this camera has been a helpful (and super fun!) experience thus far; I just developed my first roll and it's pretty awesome!

I don't want to sound like I've figured everything out, but I am improving my photography.  Could I be improving faster?  Sure, but enjoying the process and also I'm enjoying my current photographic output level.\

Relax, and get better naturally instead of trying to race to get to some photographic nirvana where nary a frame is wasted.

The two larges factors holding me back are time and money. I don't have the time to experiment not do I have the money to help me pick up the equipment and/or skills (classes) that would really help me push further. That's one reason I really love your site - It helps me mitigate the lack of funds.

I think I'm improving with every shoot I do but I would improve more if I could pick my fav photographers brains... Not so much to copy their styles but find out how they do it & make it my own...

If I have more un-interrupted time... for personal project and exploring :)
because the less I shoot for myself, the more my "creative-vision-muscle" stiffens 

My problem is not time-related or such, more like the lack of energy or even bothered to. Dont get me wrong, I love photography, but somtimes the creativity is what makes me stay at home or not bringing the camera.

Maybe even its that I dont find anything interesting in my town. I could take my car and just drive somewhere, but I would like to take photos with friends rather then going alone.

Just a few weeks ago there were a Con in my town with some cosplay characters, and just this boosted my energi to photo by miles, but as soon as the Con was over, I was in my old state.

To sum it up, I need some photography friends nearby!

I agree with many of the previous commenters, but once I began photographing for me & not the world, then I found that I could learn at my own pace / time. I could improve my photography by challenging myself a bit more....to photograph the ordinary with a different perspective and use what's available to create 'the' photo.

And, if you find yourself surrounded by others who more photography experience, ask them for advice - 'Hey, I tried to do this, but that didn't work - do you know how to..?' I'm sure they'd like to share their knowledge with another shutterbug whose interested in learning more.

I have a D3 and I love photography anything ranging from street photography, to landscape, and candid and model shots are my favorites. I love to travel and explore, camera is too heavy and big for me and hard to bring around. It's a nice workout and all but I'd prefer a Leica M9 if I have enough money for one. I admit, with a big camera, it seems to be too intimidating and scares everyone away or they look at me like an alien.

Time is also a factor, my work this year have got me working on weekends a lot so didn't really have much time to offer for photography. :(

If the above 2 problems are solved, I'd definitely like to improve my skills in all areas of photography.

I really appreciate this forum and website and everyone's comments.  Relating with so many other passionate amateurs and superstars as to the troubles we all go through makes things less frustrating.  

I concentrate on having fun and learning from my and others' photos.  Fun is why i do it, getting one photo that day i think is a good presentation of what i saw is why i continue.  All those photos have been for me but with the sharing websites all around, i'm thinking i could learn from other's experiences or reviews of my work.

I need to invest in a post processing program so that i can finish my shots.  I suppose the ultimate goal is to learn to get out there and recognize beauty, striking humanity and nature at rest and in action then capture it.  Maybe a bump up from my only camera, a 28mm wide angle point and shoot would help open my eyes too.

I'm in a macro rut so i would challenge myself to put my photos out there for other's to comment on and find other photographers that i could learn from.  Maybe get more involved in an online community.

I think that there are two things that would improve my photography.  As already mentioned - taking more photos is a definate one.  It's winter in Australia atm and it's sometimes less that inviting to go outside in the wind and rain.

However i think my biggest improvements come from taking risks - ie not taking the safe shots, and trying something different (ie an angle, a subject, a style).  Sometimes I surprise just buy not only taking the easy shot but trying something different.

As a pro commercial photographer I find it very hard to take a time out from work in order to do personal work. I find myself thinking "If I have the time now to pick up the camera\work on the computer then I should really do some REAL work and not WASTE time on my own personal things."

Although I do learn and improve technically from shoot to shoot, it is a lot harder to develop the aesthetic and visual language while on most commercial jobs.

How do you guys manage to separate the two? or better yet, combine them both?

Since the start of my new job i feel i'm improving but i could do more, i feel i need to let my creativity out more and not get hung up on the tehnically perfect side i was taught photography just as digital was making a break through and I spent so much time exposing correctly and getting the perfect shot with only 36 frames that i can't shake the fact that its digital...if it goes wrong so what you have a gig card fill it up if you need to philosophy......and that sometimes an imperfect shot can be really nice. 

The best thing I can think of to improve my photography would be finding a photo "buddy" - someone who can offer criticism and praise, if warranted, lol. 

Aside from that, I would like to be able to spend more time learning how to be more creative, see the world in different ways that would lend themselves better to interesting photography.

First, let me thanks you for the great discussion and candidness that has been on the comments. I know it is not easy to expose what may be considered a weakness and I appreciate it.

While I cant reply to all the comments I am reading them all and immensely enjoying the high lever of trust and discussion. Would any one (perhaps of the more experienced photogs) pick up the glove and answer a few of the concerns in the comments

@Nikhil, thanks for bringing this issue. I had a long while where I felt the same. With my screenwriting even more than my photography. For screenwriting the solution was fairly simple, it was all done before, it is not a matter of what but more a matter of how. how many time have you seen a movie about a dying man that gains hope form meeting a your kid, a cop turns corrupt and comes back to serve at the most crucial moment and dozen other "basic" plots. for reasons beyond me I find it hard to apply the same logics to photography.

@Bevan so true. Not that it helps a lot but it is nice to know more photographers are afraid on the inside even while looking confident. I wish I could do the same.

@Morgana & Jeff, always good to hear a sane voice.

@everyone talking about time/money, both Chase Jarvis and Don Giannatti are great places to get inspired. I wanna shoot after reading each of their posts.

I also highly recommend checkng out Chase Jarvis blog [and podcasts]. I don't always agree with what he says but it always gives me food for thought. :)

Like others above, I had a fear of asking people to allow me to make portraits of them.  I knew it was down to my own lack of confidence.  So I took a course to improve my familiarity with studio lighting, off camera flash, and mixing those with available light with the aid of a light meter.  (I actually studied for a whole diploma, which I have just completed and gained a distinction, but short courses in lighting could be the turning point for a lot of people.)

Learning to use a light meter has been incredibly empowering and confidence boosting.  It makes me feel fully in control of the lighting effects I want to achieve.

My next project is going to be a series of creative portraits of as many of my friends and acquaintances as are able to come and sit/stand/jump/sprawl for me.

http://enticingthelight.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Stages-of-a-Photo...

With apologises about my poor/limited english.

What prevents me from improving my photos, as a reel amateur, is the sense of "emergency". Having made some progress over years, the subject, the light, the moment do not suffice to provide a reason for investing time and or money in the second phase: analyse, critic, choose, print, expose.

Because there is no universal response to what means "Improve my photos". My photos may be better from a technical point of view along my progress in better handling my equipment, better understanding light, composition, interaction with my models, etc ..

This may lead for me to produce more and more "perfect" photos like you may find millions on the web. And to participate as well to a non sense competition about the perfect camera or lenses which will necessarily help me reach perfection.

Why do I shot, what does my work mean , what does my photos tell to a viewer or to me, are they worth to be exposed or even simply worth to be kept in a family photo album?

I would need to better define my priorities, possibly one or several photographic projects, which would help me set aesthetic criterias for both the shot and the selection phases, identify stength, weaknesses, style.

If I succeed to define either many short term photographic objectives, or a long term trend, I will both find the energy to work on the selection, and better understand what I should clarify about the reason why I shot and so probably limit the quantity of shots while, hopefully, improving their quality.

I'm looking forward finding some weekend or holiday trainings where I could have discussions with other photographers, professionnal and amateurs, which would be project oriented, not classical trainings dealing with composition, rules, techniques, material.

I would also like to find places where to have the possibility to exchange with others and also manage common photographic or plastic art mini-projects.

If I had better lenses. I love to shoot people, wildlife, nature, mostly anything, but people have been the most interesting lately. I have finally gotten up the nerve to start asking people to let me photograph them, and most of them comply. Now I have people coming up to me asking me to photograph them. But I realize my lenses, although decent are not the best.

I would improve my photography if i spent more time critically and carefully listening to the small, still voice inside my head rather than the sea of voices around me.

If I were given the gift of time ...

Time to think of new projects
Time to scout locations
Time to prepare the shotsTime to wait for the moment
Time to post-process
Time to share

I think lack of patience is my worst enemy. When I am back after a photo session and I go over my photos, I don't have enough patience to stop over bad photos and think WHY they are bad, and this I think is very important in order to improve.

I also am with the I'm afraid to ask people to sit for sessions, which is kinda holding me back right now.

I am also being held back a bit by money.  There are a few items I would really like to have for my kit, as well as I would love to take some classes.  Sadly, I don't have the money to obtain all of that right now.  So, I feel like I'm not ready for pro photography, which is holding me back from starting.

I'd like to add something to my previous post.

Not long ago I took a beginners course in creative photography which was held at my school with a teacher that actually came from a real photography school which had been given a price for being the best. He wasent good with amatuers, us that is. Altough I was overqualified, some stuff still nags me until this day that he taught us, e.g "Before you take a photo, think about what it means to you and what message you want to give". I feel this is stopping me from taking MY pictures and get more creative, as I have to think of a message I have to give to the WORLD.

I would improve my portraiture photography if I had more time and also wasn't afraid of asking people if they would like their picture taken.  I also spend way too much tim e analysing the shot instead of taking it.

I could improve my boudoir photography if my wife would pose more often :)

Seriously though, I'm guilty of going out and shooting a card, or several, full of pictures and then not going through them to dump the bad ones. I have a ton of images in Lightroom that I need to do this with. Realizng I have this problem I've taken the following steps to overcome it:

1 - Setup a quick collection of photos without keywords. These are new images that I need to go through. Everytime I import new images I see this number grow and that reminds me I need to go through 'em. When time permits I go through these images and either assign keywords to the keepers or reject them so they'll eventually get deleted from LightRoom. I need to take this a step further and go through my various keyword groups and eliminate duplication but that's something I can work on after I get better of getting rid of images right off the bat.

2 - My wife is learning photography and we've started a new activity together. We shoot all we want from Sunday through Saturday. On Sunday evening after dinner we grab a glass of wine and sit down at the computer and go through the images from the previous week. Those we like we mark as a pick in Lightroom. After we go through them all we then go through the list of picks and slowly eliminate them until we're left with one picture that we select as the Picture Of The Week (POTW). After we've done this for a year we're going to take the 52 POTW selections and have them printed in a book.

Interesting topic, no doubt. Also if anyone shoots Canon and has a question you can't find an answer to shoot me an email at zack at zdpictures dot com and I'll try and help if I can.

I'm an amateur.  I shoot people 90% of the time.  My style is mostly candids of my family and others while out on events.  Sometimes I actually do a shoot (where I go out with purpose of producing a set of photos).   My photos have improved slowly over time both technically and in composition.   I have three things I am working on:

anticipation of shot ... i.e. being at the right speed, aperture, iso, having the right lighting, and being in the right position.  composition, composition, composition (after getting #1 framing and pressing the trigger at the right moment seems to count for something).talking to my model(s) and having posing ideas when out on a shoot.  (very lacking in this area)

The interesting thing is that I seem to do 1000% better shooting people other then my family.   If my kids 6 & 8 see me they will make or cover their faces, and my wife will just give me that look ... and forget about posing them.

I could improve my photography if I dedicated more time to actually doing it than reading about it and looking at other people's pictures.

Also, like others, I have a fear of taking my camera around with me out into the world.

I would improve my photography if I had more free time. I currently work in a very demanding full time job and get home late to take care of my family. I have the equipment, the willingness to improve and vision on the images I want to create. Since I arrive home at night I started changing my subject just to get my camera out at least once a day: from fireworks to the Moon, I'm trying night photography now.

I would improve my photography if I had more good literature in my own languaje (spanish) and more time for shooting. I agree with almost all the posts of the poll.

I would improve my photography if...
...I were able to travel more often,
if I were a better person,
if I were a more experienced and wise human being.

I'm positive that knowing other cultures, meeting new people, exploring the world is a unique way of improving and that's what I'd like to do. I would improve my photography as years go by.

Like most of the previous comments, lack of time is my biggest issue. My profession requires that I work really long days  Weekends should be family time. So when I shoot, I shoot what's around. I'd like to get beyond the formulas that have worked  reasonably well for shooting flowers and the grandchildren. People fascinate me, but I'm a bit shy about approaching strangers and hiring models could be a risk to my professional career. Also don't have a studio. No time for travel, and like others I feel that so many of those images have already been taken by better photographers. I don't like to be a copycat.

This is a great conversation.

for me becoming better a photography is getting out and doing it. I am an amateur and typically I learn by doing anyway so it made sense for me to get out and dive in. Once I had a decent camera and had some advanced settings to work with. Getting a camera more advanced then you are will give you some room to grow with that camera instead of buying a standard camera and wishing I had one more advanced a few months once I got better.

I spent the winter reading and studying in preparation of improving my craft come springtime. My goal was to revamp my techniques, take a step back and shoot better. It was well worth the time and effort, the end product being noticeably better. I refreshed myself in the basics, relearned the simple things one tends to let slip and honed my advanced skills - the artistic mannerisms...

my lighting skills.  I agree that practice makes better images.  I do pull apart and critique my work. 

I would improve my photography if I could find some intermediant level literature. There is no shortage of beginner books, but I need to hone skills to the next level, and I can't really do that without forking out big bucks to have some self-centered "artist" charging me $900 or more to take a picture of a mountain just as the rising sun hits it. Not only is that trite, but I could do that all by myself anyway. I also would like to see some intermediant level books on photo editing. There are classes for this sort of thing, but I live in a small town where this sort of resource is non-existent. 

I realize that everything that I outlined as lacking can be found on the internet, but it is scattered sparsly about and not easy to find.

I'm aiming for some Yongnuo flashes in the next month or so. I have found that my studio strobes are overpowered for most of the things I'm doing right now, and I have some potential to do some location work that would really be best served by OCF and not battery-pack-powered studio strobes.

It's a bit more than just 'gear', I suppose, but that's what I'm looking at doing right now.  If I get it, it comes with ample Bowens lighting, processing and printing equipment, space for a darkroom (I love working in the darkroom) and a 5x4 monorail large format camera.

If I don't get it, next gear purchase will be a contest between a Bowens portable lighting kit and a Canon L lens.

Iam already an advanced photographer, but there is still much more to lean and do. The biggest thing is money. Photography takes money for gas to go to locations I wish to shoot, and film / chemicals. Second enemy is time, I work a lot and it is hard to balance work, home duties, and my hobbies. Last thing is I would really like a photo buddy so that I don't feel so up tight walking around by myself somewhere like downtown afer dark. Next purchase will likely be a second lens for either my MF or LF camera, leaning more towards LF. By the way, I do not buy into the thing about you need to take a lot of pictures. It's silly to run around spraying everything with a digital just because you don't pay for film. That's not really learning anything that's just playing around. Discipline yourself to ask what I'm aI photographing and why. Then look for ways to strengthen those reasons in the photo using things like focus points, DOF, etc. It's like learning to play an instrument, you don't have to practice for hours, but you need to practice doing things correctly and practice regularly. Practice doing things until they become natural. Sometimes you don't even have to snap a picture just practice seting up the camera for the shot(menues and stuff), metering, camera controls, focusing, and developing your eye. When all of these things become second nature you can start to relax and focus on what's in front of you instead of what's in your hands. Notice pro photographers don't spend a lot of time fumbling with the camera. They are looking around until they see what they want, then camera up, bang picture done. And then on to the next shoot. That's the level of comfort with your gear and technique that we she be working towards, and you can't get there changing cameras all the time. Sorry for the long rant.

I need a fast lens, need more sharp images.

I'd be better if I took the time to take pictures. Also, I'd be better if I had some models to help me learn. I have no one to shoot with, and being a portrait photographer - that limits me.

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I'd be a better photographer if spent more time behind the camera and less time in front of this screen messing around online, especially on flickr.

It's easy to find models who will work on a TFP (time for prints) basis.  There are websites dedicated to putting Models, MUAs (make-up artists) and 'Togs in touch.  http://www.modelmayhem.com is popular, and there are others but some may be restricted to a certain country or area, so you need to do your own googling based on where you live.

It takes a bit of it all.  Study.  Practice of what has been studied.  Spray is a great form of experiment.

I often learn a lot from my mistakes.  I wrote about a day when I did spray and where I was more deliberate http://glamourphotography.co/?p=713 

The deliberate shots were better.  I learned to be more deliberate.

Should you stop and go home when not fully ready?  Or spray?

In all candor tho, I spray a lot better these days than I used to.

The thing is, I will actually take the seconds, minutes to analyze what's up while I shoot.  Working w models, it's important to give them something to think on while I ponder my next steps, and they need to know they are doing the fine jobs.

Then when I figure out  a direction, back to click click clicking.

I love going on trips and taking lots of photos (mostly landscape)I think what discourages me the most is that I know the photos, no matter how great, will just end up on my hard drive with the tons of other ones, for no one to see but myself.  I need to update my website, print the pictues, or just somehow get it out there for other to see too, that way they can comment and make me a better photographer. Then ofcource there's the lack of time to get out there and money for nice gear :-)