Thought for the weekend:
To be honest, most of my pictures suck. The saving grace of that admission is that most of your pictures suck, too. How could I possibly know such a thing? Because most of everybody’s pictures suck, that’s how. I’ve seen Cartier-Bresson’s contact sheets, and most of his pictures sucked. One of my teachers said that it was an epiphany for him when he took a class from Garry Winogrand and learned that most of Winogrand’s exposures sucked. It’s the way it is.
— Mike Johnston, of 37th Frame, The Online Photographer, etc. fame, in his essay,The Magic Bullet
So how do you deal with most of your art sucking? The insanely excellent book, Art & Fear: Observations on the Peril (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland, has some outstanding thoughts on the subject. If you like that one, chase it with Orland’s follow-up, The View From The Studio Door: How Artists Find Their Way In An Uncertain World. I keep meaning to write reviews of both of them but never seem to find the time to do it properly. For now I’ll just say that they’re the best investments in artmaking I’ve ever made.