Not Good Enough

Depending on one's frame of mind and how long they spend dwelling on things, they can talk themselves into almost anything.

That is why I always try to stay in a positive frame of mind and never over thing things.

So, no, if I ever started to think that way, I would shake it off and move on to something more positive.

To prove my point... some of the most boring images I have ever created have sold, and some sell over and over again.

It does NOT matter, stay in YOUR creative muse... I try to put up 30 works a month. I have had some of my worst work sell. By working even if I feel it sucks, that's the only way through... It's kinda like every seed has to die into the soil to bloom; or the caterpillar has to made the cocoon before it can fly.

My art is better than cigarettes, they totally suck and suck the life out of a person... My art gives life, inspiration...

Eat an artichoke... Do you pluck off the leaves & dip into lemon or sauce then stop? For years I ate that way.
No! Ya got get thru the fuzzy stuff to get to the heart of it! Turn it upside down.

Not Good Enough TRANSFORM Enough! EN YOU GO!

Yes, i feel that way very often

Usually I delete the pictures that are not good enough to be seen / sold in public

As far as i'm concerned my work can always improve some place. You have to always set a goal higher than what you can do so you can get better or faster. Always create a challenge project that will push you beyond what you normally do. Like if you normally draw squares, aim for circles.

Then everything under it will be easier.

But if you are bored about the topic, change topics, or change methods. Learn a new method.

The key thing is, you have to learn how to critique yourself and be actually objective. Figure out why you don't like your stuff, why you like other people's stuff and fix the things you don't like. Or add things you think will make it look better. Don't rely on other people for this unless you need a jump start.

Unless the image is really bad, I won't erase it, I will revise it to current methods though.

Like if the scene looks static, try to get people in it. If the sky looks blank add clouds. If the scene needs warmth wait till the end of the day. Etc.

And when in doubt, ask for a critique and try to follow the advice. Many artists automatically make excuses why it couldn't be done that way, but they may be right.


----Mike Savad

"Not good enough" is a common self-doubt. We are always our own worst critics.

What you think of your work may be totally different from a viewer's impression.

A certain amount of self-criticism isn't all bad. It makes you strive to be better.

Often what I think isn't good enough turns out to be a hit, and vice versa. Just keep on truckin, and let your viewers decide.

So, to answer your question - yes, always.

When you feel that you have arrived and your work is all that, you have just stopped growing. You have become like a stagnant pool that the water sits still in.

But not every advice is automatically good.

My advice is.


----Mike Savad

Till now yes

It is funny, I was just thinking - that is the exact reason I do not like having my own art hanging in my home. No matter how much I like a piece when I complete it, if I look at it long enough, I will find things I would like to change.

As long as you follow what I say, you can do no wrong.


I don't have my own art hanging either, but I have no art anywhere. I have too much stuff on the walls.

I do find myself editing an image as I take the picture, but because of this I try to align myself in such a way to either not have to clone things out, or to make it easier on myself.


----Mike Savad

I quite often look at my photos and think "that one's not good enough", but that's largely because I take a lot of photos, and it's impossible to make them all good. I agree with Mike that there's always room for improvement. I think my photos have improved quite a bit over the years, both in the shooting phase as well as the editing phase, as I learn new techniques. Even still, sometimes I look back at older-but-still-relatively-new photos and wish I had done something differently. Maybe a different vantage point, which could be as simple as moving two feet to the left so that, for example, a road sign is hidden behind something. Or I might look back at a picture that I do like the scene of, but the post processing could have been done much better. Sometimes, I'm also editing a photo in my mind as I'm taking it - "I like that aspect, but I'll want to remove that object... is it in front of a complex background? Oh, then it'd help if I had an image of just that background... can I get to the other side of this object to get that image?" That sort of thing.

During my time on FAA I have uploaded and subsequently deleted hundreds of images, so yes, I do sometimes produce work that I later find boring, or just bad! Personally, I think that is positive rather than negative, as it means you are thinking about the quality of your work, and not uploading any old thing just to increase the size of your portfolio.

Of course. That's why there is a recycle bin on the computer. Part of an artist's responsibility is editing out the crap.

If it is not good enough, you can always delete things. In digital world I mean.
However occasionally I had the opposite feeling: some looked better than I was remembering them.

I think that the longer you work in a field, no matter what, the higher your expectations become.

I have a folder where any creations I'm not super happy with go...there they sit until I revisit them with some fresh ideas on how to spruce them up. Sometimes they can't be redeemed so they will stay in the folder with their boring buddies, begrudgingly talking about what might have been.

One thing I do know for sure...if you're bored with your own work, you probably shouldn't show it. I try not to but sometimes I'm lazy and let things through anyway.

Then don't look at it for a while :) It works both ways. I've got images I sidelined years ago that I didn't particularly like at the time, or couldn't make my mind up over, which later appealed to me after a long absence and on viewing with fresh eyes. Similarly I've got work that I liked years ago which I'm not so keen on now. Tastes change over time. Mine does anyway. It also helps to disconnect yourself from an image, especially if it was one that was difficult to capture. Emotion plays a part and time allows for some detachment so that a more objective view can be taken.

Yes, but I also regularly see sales announcements for images that make me take a 2nd look...and not in a good way. So, I just keep my 'not bad' stuff up there in case it's found in search, but keep my good stuff listed first on my artist website and in collections.

Of course I think that my work is not good enough sometimes. I think it's a perfectly natural part of creativity and craftsmanship. Without feeling that our work is not good enough at times, none of us would grow at all.

Sometimes I just need to mix things up a bit. Try working in ways, or with tools or subjects that I don't typically work with. Quite often I will just slap a lens on my camera, and walk around shooting things as if a child who was just handed a camera would. I don't usually end up with any great results, but the exercise often leads to some good ideas or renewed enthusiasm in my chosen medium.

Sometimes taking a break all together is just what I need. Things look different with some rest and a fresh eye.

All my output goes through a cycle.

I make it.
I share it.
I come back in a day and look at it.
I come back in a week and look at it.
I come back in a month and look at it.
If I am still sharing it in a year, then it made the cut.

Put another way.

I fidget a lot, and what remains today I am currently happy with.

PS. I recently culled my FAA hosted portfolio from more than 2300 to less than 300 outcomes. My biggest fidget of 2022.

Every single painting I've done, bar one

I do not think
There is an
Artist

Of any value
That doesn’t
Doubt what
They’re doing.

Francis Ford Coppola.


I can't look at my Art for very long. I get a little board. After I step away and see it again it's fresh again.
I only hang two small pieces of my own work in my house. They are not in conspicuous places.

My 0$ opinion is that it's the internal critic that is the artist, everyone else inside me is just too insecure to be honest.

If I have something that I think is not good enough I look at that as a challenge to turn it into something better.

A whole lot of my artwork is made from my "not good enough" photographs, but when I turn them into artwork suddenly they are better. And it is fun too. :) When they sell that is just icing on the cake.

I put my images into three piles.

1. the ones that are total garbage, and I am the only one who ever sees them. This is the biggest pile by a mile.
2. the ones that I think might sale. Some of these I really like, while some are experiments to expand my audience, that I would never hang on my own wall, but other people do.

3. the "masterpieces", the very few images that WILL be hanging on my walls when the estate sale is in full swing. They are often those images that surprised even me when I finished cleaning up the RAW file, and the ones that drive me to keep shooting.

>"Do you ever wonder if your Art drawings or Photo images are not good enough"

Good enough for WHAT? For my self-esteem, to be posted on FAA, to be sold, or to sit on a hard drive?

I assign much value to my time.

I do not want to look through the microscope at what is already done instead of doing something new.

My piles are:

1. Family
2. Textures or clipart worthy
3. Blurred garbage that I erase
4. Blurred not garbage but not worthy of editing without painting software
5. Stuff that is good enough that I might edit it.
6. Stuff that catches my eye and I do it first.

Usually 5 and 6 may get uploaded, 5 is likely not to be touched. But they also might be the same scene from many angles.


----Mike Savad

I was going to delete an image, got busy doing something else only to see that 3 days later it sold! Therefore I never delete anything. The time to delete is in camera or culling in Capture One.

A hard Yes!!

Google Photos brings up images from the past. Some I like and check to see if I've "developed" them. I do occasionally run across an image already uploaded that I think can be improved and will exchange the old for the new. I also paint over old canvases. The painting might have been good, but didn't sell after two or three years and needs a new face.

What Steve said. I had an image I considered deleting and it sold a month later. You never know what other people will like.

That is true, never know what the clients are going to like. I have several images that could go to the delete button and one of the client bought it and must of love it! Even though I think it's not good enough, it's better to leave it alone.

When I face such dilemma the question is good enough for who? You or Others? but then I will never know what others may or may not like or think.even when they do speaks or comments about an art work mainly is a polite and encouraging words.

I just deleted about 20 images that are "not good enough" to be seen / sold

And I feel good knowing that only the best (or second best) can be at my website

I always feel that way. My sales have been an average of 3-4 a month for a while now and just when I was finally this year getting 6-10+ sales a month here, my "am I good enough" question came back when suddenly this month I've had 0 sales here. Been frustrating. It's always a roller coaster of emotions.

But then this week I finalized a deal to have 9 of my Warsaw Missouri photos purchased to be put in a Veteran's hospital (the 2nd hospital now my photos are in), Was contacted by a firm who wants to purchase one of my photos for an official city document study they are doing, and someone with a manufacturer from out of state contacted me to take photos of some recording studio equipment because they saw my work here. That made me feel a little better.

I've learned to not delete images I don't think will sell, because the funny thing is, it seems my least liked images are the ones that sale. Most of my favorites have either not sold or I've only sold some of them once. You just never know what someone is looking for.

When that comes...I remember: "What we are aware of is withstood by something far less complicated or complex but which would have us believe otherwise."

A NYC gallery owner once told me color photography is not art. So I shouldn't even be selling my stuff on a "fine art" site. I started jurying into fine art shows at the urging of some friends. Sure I won awards, but again I was told photography is not art. And some of my closest friends said that if I didn't do HDR or substantial manipulation of the content it is not art. If you listen hard enough you can hear it in the discussions as a regular theme here on FAA. And even my own Dad told me nobody would by it. My Mom said it was way too expensive and I should undercut Walmart.

So of course I have doubts! And while I don't sell a lot, I sell a few every month. Even ones that I sure were not good enough sell sometimes. So I let the money talk and still strive for improvement.

I find it ironic that in 1997 I took a college course in digital photography and the title of the text was "Digital Artistry" Over the past 25 years I have refined my techniques and I am always improving and using the latest digital tools. I can spend hours working on a single piece getting it just right. . Yet it is accepted here that I am just a "button pusher." Because choice of tools and settings and manipulation of light, color and tonality is not considered art here. Only manipulation of subject.

I will continue with my button pushing because even a few sales a month is something.

One more thing. I think most of the contributors here are absolutely awesome. I am humbled just looking at the portfolios.

Bradford, I know we agree on this. The lens is the frame that the artist behind the camera uses to compose the photo. I think photos are art when the photographer has an artists' eye.

Mebbe it's self-deluding, yet I believe that I am a world-beating
artist - just that it's not widely known!!! ;)

(Lots of) Sales and being good at what you do are independent of each other

We have Britto and we have Van Gogh

Not everybody can be a marketing genius like Peter Lik, but we can have, and need, trust, confidence, imagination and a few technical skills. With trust and confidence I mean in your art and in your name

Having said that, 200 years from now on a TV program like Treasure in the Attic, somebody will find one of my pictures and scream "We are rich"

"The success of many artists is gained through convincing others that their art is the most important art to own…regardless of what it looks like…"

This is a quote from a trusted art aficionado. It's an "ah ha" moment statement for me.

Let your viewers / customers decide what is good enough....

If it's not good enough for yourself anymore, that is a sign to step outside the box.

Yes, I have definitely been there. I think we all have. It can be frustrating, that's when I know I either need a new challenge or need to look back at my older work to see how much have grown.

Sometimes, I will see something in my old work that is lacking in my new work though, and decide to incorporate it again. It's a constant back and forth between reinvention and reflection.

Going through that phase now, keep looking at what other floral photographers are doing and seeing stunning florals. I look at mine and think, not good enough!
When we get more into summer and the garden starts to fill with flowers perhaps the inspiration and enthusiasm for floral photography will return.

Never. It's never my problem, but all of those customers who just don't understand what I'm doing. The Great Unwashed.

I have this in the ABOUT section of my website, kengortowski.com
Keeps me striving to do better. Whether or not I am I guess is up to each viewer.

I walk around with cameras and take pictures of things I find interesting.

Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

I put what I think are the better ones here on my site.

I don’t title my images unless it’s a description.
Fall Railroad Tracks is just that, railroad tracks in the fall.
I want people to get what they want out of an image with no coaching from me.
Plus, it conceals what I’m thinking about when I’m out there taking the pictures.

I like it that way.

The problem is, if you had 25 images of fall railroad tracks it would get mighty boring calling it 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. At burger king for example, we don't call it burger 1, burger 2, each has its own name. Even though its the same thing in a different order.

I like challenging people by making clever puns, or bad puns. Not really a difference between the two.


----Mike Savad

I tried that years ago Mike and eventually ran out of things to say about them.
I always appreciated when artists a long time ago would just call their painting or drawing "untitled". I got to interpret it however I felt.
Plus, I have this tendency to just look at the work. If I like it I might look at the title.

That all being said, now and then I'll come up with something I think is clever, but it's getting rarer as I age.