How to Recognize When the Problem Is You

Don Giannatti has a great rant over at Lighting Essentials about photographers who suck but don’t yet know it. He runs through 10 clear reasons why you aren’t successful and he’s on target with all of them.

As we approach the end of the semester, I’m starting to get the gear questions*. Most of my kids get that it’s not the kit that matters but the person operating it, but this still resonated with me:

Owning a fancy camera with all the bells and whistles only requires a good credit score, not a quality image score. Using all your money to acquire the newest pixel machine may make you a hit on G+, but it will do nothing but suck your assets from doing something important to help your business. Gear Acquisiton Syndrome will suck the viability out of any emerging shooter.

The rest of his list is about the quality of your work, the quality of your portfolio, the quality of your work ethic, the quality of your marketing, the quality of your brand … it’s a comprehensive list of the reasons photographers generally, well, suck.

* Every year I do a series of posts on gear to help my kids sort through all of the choices out there. Usually, I update it around the Thanksgiving break so these are about a year old, but the core ideas are still relevant.