Ever feel like your work is lacking

I can't put my thumb on it.
I've been doing photography for a little over a year now.

I see myself progressing, and I believe that I am as well, but I every time I look at my photos compared to some others I just feel inferior.

Was browsing through 1x.com and its just mind blowing how good most of the work is.

Obviously comparing myself to others, especially of that caliber, is not a good thing nor is it necessary but ya know.

What are some books/videos/lessons/t​utorials that have majorly helped you over all as a photographer?

I mean I know I obviously lack major equipment compared to most as well but I feel like I have sufficient enough gear to put out better work than I do currently. ( I don't have any studio strobes and I currently have One Reflector and normally no one to go with to hold it)
Canon 6D
100mm L Macro
24-105 Canon L

Here are some of my most recent shots I did. Please keep in mind I'm not the greatest at photoshop and I was heavily messing around with Frequency separation for the first time hah

Nick Aufiero wrote in post #17129124
I can't put my thumb on it.
I've been doing photography for a little over a year now.
I see myself progressing, and I believe that I am as well, but I every time I look at my photos compared to some others I just feel inferior.wasn't the best.

You're still a beginner, and beginners don't and can't produce work that matches the effort of experienced technicians and artists.

There's a concept popularized by author Malcom Gladwell, that ten-thousand hours of practice are needed to master any skill. If you've been using a camera for one calendar year, if you spent every hour of that year practicing photography, you would not have reached 10,000 hours.

Photography is an art that has many subtleties in its many styles and offshoots. It takes years to lean how to manipulate those subtleties and even more time to master them.

If you stick with photography and are determined to learn, you'll get better, but you won't be a master overnight. Too many people, having seen the work of experienced master artists and craftsmen, think they can get a camera and achieve the same thing right away, and then they're disappointed when the money they spend on equipment doesn't equate success.

If you're dedicated to long and intense study, you'll improve,but that improvement will be gradual and incremental.

Do you really want to improve? Consider locating a school or a master photographer who will teach what you need to learn.

Well, I've been at this for at least 5 years now and I feel like I'm lacking too, although if I didn't, I suspect I wouldn't strive to get better either. No matter what you do or are into, there is a very slim chance that you are the best or have gone the furthest, but don't look at what other people are doing, look at your own work and do the best you can.

This is a bit of a separate topic, for B&W images to turn out well, they have to be shot with B&W in mind. Usually the first disappointments come when you get drab gray images because you weren't paying attention to the lighting or that being in B&W adds nothing to the aesthetic.

Everone's work is inferior to someone else's.

DC Fan wrote in post #17129207
You're still a beginner, and beginners don't and can't produce work that matches the effort of experienced technicians and artists.

There's a concept popularized by author Malcom Gladwell, that ten-thousand hours of practice are needed to master any skill.

FWIW I reckon I've shot for about 2500 hours in total to date since I bought my first DSLR when I was a complete novice. I'm by no means a master now but IMHO Gladwell's figures go out of the window with the advance of Liveview and EVFs.

Grab a Sony A7 (any of the series) with an EVF and you should nail every exposure. It is so easy to shoot WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). The only thing you have to concentrate on is composition and timing. Instead of the old days of film where you had maybe 5 out of 100 perfectly exposed images to learn from you can now have 95-100% perfectly exposed images to learn from. In theory people should be able to learn a good 20 times faster than they did in the film days as the era of trial and error is largely gone with an EVF.

I'd be more worried if I never felt like that! That feeling is what makes me strive to learn more, shoot more, and improve.

I know exactly what you mean about looking at the great work of others and feeling inferior. But rather than let it get you down, use it as motivation to keep improving. Yes the improvement will be gradual! The more you know the more you realise how much you have yet to learn.. but learning (for me at least) is a huge part of the fun and challenge of photography.

I dont have a clue about how many hours I spend looking through the viewfinder, but I have the same feeling as the OP. I guess it's a sign that you're learning and I do feel that every shoot i do today is the best ever. If I compare last year's photos to this year's I realise I made big steps.

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #17129256
FWIW I reckon I've shot for about 2500 hours in total to date since I bought my first DSLR when I was a complete novice. I'm by no means a master now but IMHO Gladwell's figures go out of the window with the advance of Liveview and EVFs.

I reckon you've shot quite a bit more hours than me, but that's guessing. EVF and Liveview are wonderful but don't impact on photography as an art. The technical side is easier, it's certainly easier to expose correctly, but in terms of composition, lighting (play with shadows and such), cleaning up little distractions in your frame and around the edges, getting the most out of each piece of equipment, and so on... there is no substitute for experience, learning and talent.

Having said that, I think Gladwell's figures are a rough average at best. It's putting learning into a simple statistic. Some people may learn faster than others at certain subjects. That's not immediately rated to hours.

OP, I think your pictures look good and very promising. Don't worry too much about lacking in your own mind, and look to your own work of last year when you started out or a couple of months ago. Your pictures also show you're quite good at dealing with models as she looks to be quite relaxed. Sometimes we think of photography as only the bit that comes out of the camera.

Well... once one has mastered everything one wants to do, what else is left to do but die?

Enjoy the learning journey while you can!

All the time...

Don't worry, I regularly feel like this, and I've been at it 10 years

Sometimes I feel like I make some progress when something clicks, then I stagnate again.

And occationally I look back at a photo I took 5 years ago and think I've made no progress. Then I realise I took 300 photos in a session and got 1 good one that really just came together more by luck than judgement as is 100x better than everything else I shot that day but at the time I had no clear idea as to why I suddenly got a good one, where as now I could reasonably expect to shoot 10 - 20 frames to get the same result, and that makes me feel better.

I still feel frustrated by how little progress I'm making, but I think I'm at the point where I need to put a huge amount of time on a consistant basis into my photography to progress; ie i've got as far as i can get with only picking my camera up in a capacity that really moves me forwards once a month (vs firing off lots of snapshots of family life).

First theres loads of technical camera things to master. Then there's light to get right (i'm not going to say master here - that's a lifelong endevour). Then you realise that all of that is useless if you can't direct and get the best out of your subject (for portraits) and you realise that photography isn't really about cameras at all

Btw, I really like the second image definately the stronger of the two.

Nick Aufiero wrote in post #17129124
I can't put my thumb on it.
I've been doing photography for a little over a year now.

I see myself progressing, and I believe that I am as well, but I every time I look at my photos compared to some others I just feel inferior.

Was browsing through 1x.com and its just mind blowing how good most of the work is.

Obviously comparing myself to others, especially of that caliber, is not a good thing nor is it necessary but ya know.

What are some books/videos/lessons/t​utorials that have majorly helped you over all as a photographer?

I mean I know I obviously lack major equipment compared to most as well but I feel like I have sufficient enough gear to put out better work than I do currently. ( I don't have any studio strobes and I currently have One Reflector and normally no one to go with to hold it)
Canon 6D
100mm L Macro
24-105 Canon L

Once again, I am proud of my work and myself as a photographer but when I see these they just feel lacking.
The BnW especially in the way of contrast. It just doesn't pop to me.
I'm also terrible at editing BnW and I also feel like the lighting to begin with wasn't the best.

Thanks in advance. Really appreciate your time and thoughts.

That's a good thing. It means you've set a high standard for yourself, and HOPEFULLY you'll follow up on that by making better work.

As far as what I think helps, I guess anything can helps. Books, tutorials, whatever. But I think the most important thing is simply to continue working and then getting intelligent feedback about that work.

If you ever feel your photos are good enough... you are doing it wrong.

The moment I press the shutter the photo I take is destined to be pulled to pieces by me and eat away at me with me knowing I could have done better. I never want to lose that feeling.

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #17132693
The moment I press the shutter the photo I take is destined to be pulled to pieces by me and eat away at me with me knowing I could have done better.

Yes me too. There are only a tiny handful of my photos that I'm completely 100% satisfied with, I wouldn't change anything about them at all. There's a much larger number where I'm very happy with the result but will be forever kicking myself for not using a slightly different setting, moving closer or further away etc. And a vastly larger set where I probably shouldn't have pressed the shutter at all

Nick Aufiero wrote in post #17129124
........but I every time I look at my photos compared to some others I just feel inferior.

If you didnt feel like this you would either be a jackass or the worlds greatest photographer

Nick Aufiero wrote in post #17129124
What are some books/videos/lessons/t​utorials that have majorly helped you over all as a photographer?

Personally, I feel I have improved over time by being inspired with other peoples work on here and striving to be that good myself. Ive also asked a million questions on here which has helped. Then practice, practice, practice as they say

And im under no dilusions that I have mastered it but im certainly better than I was 3 years ago when I started so its going in the right direction