Printing my photos.

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography

I recently decided to print a few of my pictures with plans to hang them in my house.  As I announced this on Facebook and mentioned it to a few people, the message was met with lots of joy from some, approval from others, and praises for yet others.  The prints arrived the other day.  I decided to print one of my shots in a very large format, and the other two in a more conventional 8×10 format.  As I opened the box, I first decided to look at the smaller prints and frame them as I had some frames lying around.  The larger print (my favorite shot thus far), I slowly removed from the package with my plan to take it and have it professionally framed as a birthday gift to me.

I scanned all the shots with a critical eye, a trait I learned by taking pictures and found flaws in each shot.  My wife looked at them and said: “they are great, quit being so negative”.  So my dilemma is this.  We are taught from an early age to practice, improve and get better at things.  As a photographer (I use that term loosely in my case), I enjoy my craft and always strive to get better.  I have been told on many occasions “you have a great eye”, “you are a great photographer”, “I try to take pictures and my stuff looks bad”.  I consider myself an average photographer at best.  I appreciate people’s opinions of my work, but I see the truth in my work.  So as someone striving to improve, do I not have a right to critique my stuff?  Do I sit back and say yeah I’m good when I know it is not the truth?  Will framing these shots and displaying them my home provides me feelings of joy and accomplishment or be an ever so obvious reminder of my flaws in my photography?

I have had a few people ask me to buy some of my shots for their homes/apartments.  Again I am honored by this, but feel a sense of guilt for the reasons listed above.  If someone is willing to pay for my work, I want it to be perfect or as close to perfect as I can make it.  People scroll through my work on Instagram, Flickr and occasionally Facebook, clicking a like here and there, and sometimes commenting.  I am perfectly okay with that, but when I shoot I take my stuff way more seriously.  I purposely frame the shots in my camera the best I can, I shoot in manual mode trying to get the exposure triangle correct in my shot.  I know some that shoot on automatic, or spray shoot and go back and ‘fix’ their shots in Lightroom, Photoshop or use other apps.  I am not downing those people, but I strive to be able to get it done ‘right’ in the camera with minimal updates on my computer.  I take a lot of pride to get my work correct, and noticing flaws are part of that process.  So I struggle on whether to allow others to hang my work in their home as I struggle to hang it in mine.  I have seen improvement in my work, but I am unsure if I will ever be truly satisfied with it.

My photography is very personal to me.  I see things and shoot things that provoke a feeling, emotion or thought at that moment.  In many instances, like music, I can tell you how I was feeling or what I was feeling the moment I took the shot.  I wanted to write this, to explain to my followers that I appreciate any feedback on my shots, but have an uneasy feeling when I receive compliments because I don’t see what others do.

Until next time,

Tim