Image making starts with an idea…

If you shoot for yourself, it will be one of your ideas. If you shoot for a client, as I do mostly, it will include at least some of your client’s ideas. For example, what he thinks you need to show to sell something.

Ideally, even if you’re shooting for a client, you can also shoot for yourself. Sometimes it’s not possible, but most of the time the photographer doesn’t try hard enough. Then you, and not your client, are standing in the way.

I’ve done some of my best work by teaming up with my client. But I also wasted many opportunities to make my work more personal.

I could have pushed more often for my own ideas that were not necessarily incompatible with the client’s.  It’s too easy to be afraid that if you don’t give in, you will lose work.

My most successful campaigns in advertising and photography happened when I used my ideas to work for the client.

What most photographers, amateur and pro, get wrong is they neglect or undervalue ideas. They think the photographic process starts with a piece of camera gear. 

You just point it at something and shoot. So you work on using the equipment really well. Ideas have little to do with it. Just make a sharp, well-exposed image and hope it will say what you want or need to say.

The photography greats used the idea-based approach. Those ideas could be about subject matter, point of view, design, mood, style, etc.

But somehow, most of today’s photographers think about photo gadgets and techniques much more than image-making.

The result is a lot of generic images that look alike and blend in with millions of others. No artistic viewpoint. No personal style.