What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in photography?

No matter what you do, I’m sure you learn from your job and your hobbies. About yourself, about the world and about the people around you. Ted Forbes addresses this topic in this video that can really get you thinking. He shares the most important lesson he’s learned as a photographer. And I’d love to hear if you agree with him.

Ted got a handwritten letter from a 14 year old girl who told him she picked up photography and she would like to start filmmaking. As she’s learned a lot from Ted’s videos, she wanted to ask him what’s the most important thing he’s learned through photography and filmmaking.

Ted gives her some sincere advice and honestly talks about the difficulties and challenges that are ahead of her. I assume it would be easier to just say “go ahead and do it, it’s what you should do.” But I appreciate his honesty and openness on the subject.

He illustrates the creative career in an interesting way – by drawing an hourglass. At the beginning, you are at the widest part. Everything is interesting, the possibilities are endless, being creative makes you happy and it’s fun.

As you progress and as time goes by, you move towards the bottleneck. When you decide to pursue a career in photography or videography, all sorts of difficult things begin to happen. There are bills to pay, maybe even mouths to feed at a later age. There are people who will undermine you, or those who advise you not to pursue a creative career because it’s difficult, and they want the best for you.

And being a photographer or videographer is difficult indeed. Another thing that adds to it is that it’s the first thing people will give up when the budget gets tight. They are not viewed as necessities, but as luxuries.

Now, my personal opinion that making a career is difficult in any field, if you want to be successful in it. It takes a lot of giving up and sacrifice. What Ted points out and I agree – there is a price tag on everything. The question is – how much are you willing to pay? In other words, how much are you ready to sacrifice to get your career where you want it to be?

And finally, the most important lesson Ted learned from photography is that you should never forget why you started doing it in the first place, and remember how fun it was in the beginning! Never forget how happy it made you, and let that be your lead. This will help you go through all the difficulties and help you overcome the problems. There will be days when you simply don’t feel like working, and this is also when you need to draw new inspiration from the old feeling.

I find this video very inspiring, and it made me think about the lessons I’ve learned in photography. They are a bit different, considering I don’t do photography for a living. But one of the lessons I’ve learned is that patience is important. And it’s not just in photography, but in life in general. So, photography has taught me to be patient and think before I act. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. No matter if you do photography/videography for a living, or just as a hobby – what is the most important lesson you’ve learned?

[THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON IN PHOTOGRAPHY | the Art of Photography]