Next Image

I've probably heard this from someone else and don't know who said it first. I just want to reiterate and reenforce this...

As a photographer, you're only as good as your next image.

You (I) can have a bunch of images that were made in the past - a long time ago or a few minutes ago. A few or thousands. And those images might be poor, mediocre, or great. Whatever value, they might even be meaningful for a very long time to some audience somewhere; or just to the photographer.

But if it ends there, it stays there. No resting on laurels.

As artists we're only as good as the next statement we will make, the next regenerative act, the impulse to create one more thing, the drive to explore further, the process of digging some simmering thing out of the pot one more time and bringing it to fruition.

Or the process of refining something we've already done to be even better.

This is not about being good-enough or better-than (nor not-as-good-as). It's about pursuing our own best, which is a forward-looking concept rather than a historical measure of some past accomplishment.

Instead of "here's what I've done," which is fine to recognize and celebrate, we should always have a mind toward "here's what I will do next."