 Up until now you've been asking the wrong question. You've been asking people what they think of your photographs. Is it good or is it bad? The question you really should be asking is who are you photographing for? How's it? How's it? In professional circles there is a phrase that says either you shoot for the sale or you shoot for the soul. Now most people, both in a professional and an amateur sense, tend to end up shooting for the sale. They're looking to please other people. Now obviously as a professional you have briefs and guidelines that you need to follow but as an amateur or as a hobbyist or somebody just does it for the love of it, are you photographing to make other people like you? Oh are you doing this because you want to just simply enjoy taking photos? I'm going to hazard a guess that it is the latter and that you just want to enjoy taking photographs and if other people like them then that's a bonus. Stop caring what people think. The easiest way to stop worrying of course about what people think of your images is simply to well to stop asking them. That doesn't mean not posting on social media or wherever you choose to display your images. It simply means not being those people and we've all seen them from time to time who go which is better for my photograph? Color or black and white? I can't decide, help me choose. That right there is the worst thing that you can do for your creativity. You are asking an aggregate of people's opinions about what you should do with your image in an effort to please everybody else. This just leads to photographs after photograph that all look similar. So say me. You need to stand out from the crowd. You need to stick your head above the parapet and start to speak with your own voice. Social media is not a place to get your ability as a photographer validated and we'll get on to that in a second. It is simply a place for you to share images. As you do share images that go a little bit beyond what is considered to be say the norm wherever you choose to show your photographs, you may run into people who give you unsolicited let's call it feedback loosely and say your photograph is rubbish or that it's got empty tumpy million things wrong with it and when you run into this I want you to take this quote to heart. Be yourself. I much prefer seeing something even if it is clumsy that doesn't look like somebody else's work. That's William Klein there. As people learn photography we get taught that there are rules that we should follow and obey like these are some sort of sacrosanct things that must never be you know confronted and some of these rules are legitimate. If you change an f-stop it will change your exposure that is a hard and fast rule. Same things like your horizons must always be straight and level is a suggestion rather than a rule. I ran into this a lot you know that I would do lots of Dutch tilt and I still do so that's when the horizon was all wonky things now some people hate it and some people like it I like it but if I were to go with the common idea that horizons should always be level then I would be creating photographs that weren't necessarily mine and this is what you need to be mindful of is that there may be suggestions that are being put in place that are holding you back from creating photographs that feel comfortable for you that feels natural and this is what we want to get is you photographing in a way that feels comfortable and natural for your own voice now that may run contrary to some of these ideas you may get pushed back from judges and people at camera clubs and stuff like that and this is when you need to recycle back to this idea of who are you photographing for are you photographing for the sale or for the soul in many respects it's good when people are questioning your choices about how you are moving forward because at least you are doing something out of the ordinary that you are challenging some expectations some you know pushing some boundaries within your photographs so don't look at it as a negative criticism look at it as a positive thing that you are heading in the right direction recently I watched a Ted talk given by Ethan Hawke where he talks about the Beat Poe Allen Ginsberg and when he went off to do a national TV spot and sang a song about Harry Krishna you know and he got back to New York to all his intelligentsia friends and they all told him that she knew that everybody thinks you're an idiot and the whole country is making fun of you and he said that's my job you know I'm a poet and so I find that very liberating because I think that most of us really want to offer the world something of quality something that the world will consider good or important and that's really the enemy because it's not up to us whether what we do is any good and if history has taught us anything the world is an extremely unreliable critic I love that idea it was so liberating when I heard it because you know it's here it's like all of a sudden yeah actually it doesn't matter if I think my work is good enough so long as I'm putting in the effort that I think it deserves because it's not for me to judge it seems counterintuitive but wow I was like I'm now free I'm free of worrying about what other people think I don't have to ask people do you like it because I'm just making work for myself that's my job as a photographer is to make images that please me first and foremost no longer did I have to worry about you know following the latest fad or fashions or you know processing techniques or you know the the subject of the of the century or you know all these kind of things that cycle around and everybody jumps on the bandwagon looking for for likes and you know shares and followers I was free to just make my own images and that all of a sudden actually paid benefits because I was speaking visually with my own voice again this is what you're going to start doing you're going to start creating images that have your soul inside them and your soul your unique vision is so much more important than trying to make a technically perfect copy of something that once upon a time was original so how do you find what motivates you what what drives you visually there's a misconception I think that you know a lot of famous artists and people who are visual visionaries are born with it then it just springs like you know like divine intervention and then that's not true at all it comes from hoarding like a magpie all the bits of visual stimuli that speak to you personally this is why it's kind of it's silly to sort of say who shall I look at to be inspired on the channel here I can give you suggestions about places to explore but your inspiration is going to be different from mine so think about the things that inspire you visually films tv I love the work of Wes Anderson that symmetrical feel that his image his films often have but my photographs are not symmetrical but they have an oddliness that comes from that symmetrical feeling that was Anderson and injects into his films asking other people if they like your photograph is putting the ball into their gut that you are saying tell me what influences you and then I will make something to fit that you're going about it the wrong way you need to have it in your own voice make a collection of things that inspire you see how wide ranging those inspirations can can actually be see if you can incorporate the feel and the mood of those things into your photography and when you start doing this you have a far richer pool of inspiration to draw from than those people who are just simply asking everybody else what they should do with their photos there is a quote by the very famous marketer Seth Godden that goes people like us do things like this and in short that means that we want to be part of a crowd we want to feel like we are accepted and this is why so many photographers I feel create just bland homogenous work because they want to feel accepted they want to feel part of this crowd they want to feel part of the cool club and that leads to conforming to making images that are like everybody else's instead take the other quote from Seth Godden to heart is that I didn't make this for you now what he means there is not saying I didn't make this so you can't have it is saying rather that if somebody says I don't like this you say it's okay it's not for you it's for me and that is such an important lesson to take too hard that you know a photographer like Ralph Eugene meatyard I find his work challenging interesting and slightly disturbing but that's fine because I kind of connect with it if you don't like it and I'm sure some of you watching this absolutely will not Ralph would probably just go okay I didn't make it for you that's part and parcel of creating something you must be willing and brave to get to grips with this idea that you can't make something to please everybody make images to please yourself first and foremost be brave enough to stand up and say I didn't make this for you now this is not to say that you need to create disturbingly weird photographs right okay it just means create images like we said earlier that are natural to you that they they feel like there's something that you want to do they don't have to be crazy they just have to be yours having this confidence having this unique expression is an ongoing process it is going to be part of your journey as a photographer from now until you finally put down a camera once and for all embrace this progression when I look at my own photographs when I was younger they were all over the place stylistic because I was finding things I was finding ideas and what having it then I fell into this idea of oh I need to start pleasing people and and I lost some of that vitality in those early images because I was trying to please other people then I discovered that you know I don't need to please other people I could just photograph for myself and that made everything about it far more enjoyable your style of photography the way that you express yourself is going to change over time and that is perfectly normal embrace it it is time for you to push the boundaries to come like the butterfly from the chrysalis of trying to please everybody asked with your photographs to be brave to to create clumsy images that William Klein would love you will be tempted to invest in new gear and all that sort of stuff over the years in your photography and the thing that you should invest in first and foremost is education to feed your mind to to seek out visual inspiration and and hoard it so that you can have a richer and far more eloquent way of expressing the way that you see the world to see more of William Klein's fantastic photography check out this video here I know you're going to love it thanks for watching