failing at photography
Every photo I take is a failure. Let me explain.
Something that happened to me—and maybe to every photographer—is that I developed a way of seeing where, the moment I look at something, I already see the photo. Or rather, I feel the emotion behind what I see, and that emotion shapes the image I want to capture. The picture I want to share.
And that’s when I call it a failure. Because I take the photo, I look at it, and for five brief seconds I feel satisfied. But then I lift my eyes back to the landscape, and it hits me again—like seeing it for the very first time.
There’s a saying that no photo ever does justice to being there in the moment. And it’s true. The scene shifts, the light changes, and suddenly it feels even greater than before. Almost as if the world is laughing at me—or laughing with me.
BUT HERE IS THE THING: I don’t call it failure because the photo is bad. Most times, I actually love the outcome. What I mean is that the photograph never fully contains what I felt, and that impossibility keeps me searching. It reminds me that there’s always more. More light, more detail, more layers of a story waiting to be told.
One of the beauties of photography is that there are no rules—at least most of the time. There’s no universal “right” or “wrong.” No one can come to you and say: this photo is incorrect. A photo is never wrong, because it’s your truth at that moment. It’s the way you saw, the way you felt, the way you chose to translate that instant into something you can hold.
Failure, then, is not defeat. It’s fuel. It’s the reminder to keep pushing, to keep raising the camera, to keep chasing what cannot be caught. Every frame holds a fragment of the story, but never the full thing—and maybe that’s exactly why I keep going.
Matthew McConaughey once said in an award speech that when asked who his hero was, he always answered: “myself, ten years from now.” Because that kept him striving, moving, reaching for the version of himself he hadn’t yet met.
Maybe photography works the same way. Maybe the image I’m looking for—the one that fully matches the feeling—will never arrive. Maybe I’ll always be chasing. But that’s what keeps me alive in it. The hero, the perfect photo, is always ten years away.
And for that, I’m grateful. Grateful that photography doesn’t let me rest. Grateful that it doesn’t satisfy me. Grateful for the “failure.” Because that failure is exactly what keeps me searching.
So here’s what I’ll say: fail. Fail often. Pick up whatever camera you have and try. Don’t settle for what you already captured—there’s always another detail, another corner of light, another expression in someone’s eyes. Fail, not because your photos are bad, but because the act of trying reveals there’s always more to see.
Every time I press the shutter, I’m reminded of this truth: photography is not about capturing everything—it’s about the endless attempt. It’s not only about the pictures I take. It’s about where photography takes me.
And that journey is infinite.
From mine to yours, keep failing, keep looking, keep trying.
