This is why you should just give up and quit photography

We all have those nagging doubts when it comes to what we shoot. No matter how good others tell us we are or how amazing they believe our work is, we feel like frauds. We struggle constantly, whether it’s with ideas, budget, time, stress. And when you sit and think about it, there are more reasons to quit than to keep carrying on.

It’s bad enough when other people tell us what we can’t do. When we tell ourselves, it can be truly devastating. It’s a topic explored by Simon Cade in this video. He talks about what he goes through, how he feels, and why he should just quit.

It does start to make one question just why we do this. And other people questioning what we do, dismissing it or just being trolls certainly doesn’t help.

But I suppose it depends on your motives for creating. When I’m creating for clients, I only need them to be happy. When I’m creating for myself, the only person I need to make happy is myself. And sometimes I fail at that, a we all do.

I used to be afraid of failing. Of letting myself down, not others. Of things not turning out as well as I’d expected. So I’d just not do it. Now, I’m not. Because if it goes badly, or doesn’t turn out great. What does it matter? Nobody ever has to see it. You can’t learn without failing. You can’t try again and improve upon it and get better if you never tried the first time. And, who knows, you might surprise yourself. It might even turn out to be better than you expected.

There’s a lot of work I’ve done in the past I used to hate that I absolutely love now. Not because it’s necessarily good work. But because it shows me how I’ve evolved and how far I’ve come since then. It was a learning experience, and a lot of my earlier work was just to see what would happen if I did this or that. And some of it I just like.

So, go throw some paint. See what happens.