Embracing Failure and Being Humble

Randall Romano

I have had a long history in photography ranging 40 years, including a part time span as a commercial photographer, while working another full time job and raising four children. In 2012 I got serious about photography and study master photographers, which lead to a four year project of street photography Yet in 2020 during the pandemic I found my way back to nature and landscape photography, where my love for photography began.

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Making photographs is all about personal decisions like what subject matter you choose to photograph or which of your photographs is good enough for others to see. Along all the paths in the creative process, there are many failures. In fact, failure to create good photographs is an integral part of the process, as is the need to let others see your photographs. Getting your photographs out into the world is an important aspect of creativity and inevitably leads to many comments. From family and friends, these comments are usually good but can be a heartfelt deception. Although meant with the best intentions, these comments are not a true unbiased critique of our work and can lead to an inflated ego. The true test of our photographs perhaps comes from seasoned photographers and from people in the creative arts industries. A direct way for us to assess if our work is good enough is to study the work of experienced master photographers and compare our work to theirs. The importance of studying master photographers cannot be emphasised enough as it is a measuring post as to your progress and increases your knowledge as to what makes a great photograph.

The process of creating photographs can be based on a variety of reasons.