I think one of the hardest things for me, as a photographer, is perfection. Composition..that’s a big bugger. What’s really hard is when you get to the point where you can’t just look at a picture any more. If you peruse any collection of photographs, you begin to mentally critique and fix them. Even if it’s a family photo that has no thought of creativity in mind, just the documentation.
It gets worse when you view your own photos. Many will die, few will survive. When you cross a certain line, nice just isn’t good enough. Every photo must be perfect. If it doesn’t look good for some reason it’s off to the trash bin. Even the funniest photos with friends are a struggle to keep if they are not that great.
Then there comes the time when you start reverse-engineering everyone’s photos. I can remember standing in the shoe store looking at a large advertisement on the wall for shoes, of course. When you get into lighting you really start noticing little things: the direction of the light (left, right, above), the light source (florescent, bare flash, umbrella, softbox), or the ever classic, natural light. (Who would have thought you could use the sun, huh?) [Of course, Strobist is to blame for my addiction to light.]
But I think you can also reach another region of thought. . . It has taken a lot of breaking down and rebuilding, but I’ve come again to being able to keep some photos which are average quality, but hold personal meaning. It’s still hard at times the accept the norm, but it’s a growing phase.
Posted by Mike Rothermel 
Posted by Mike Rothermel 