Northeast Ohio Photographer | comparison is a dirty little word

Dear Creative Soul

“Do you sometimes feel your progress is slow? Do you sometimes blame yourself for not being talented enough, and not doing enough with your career? Oftentimes the reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes circumstances with everyone else’s public highlight reel. Forget what everyone else is doing and achieving. Your life is about breaking your own limits and outgrowing yourself to live YOUR best life. The ONLY photographer you should compare yourself with is the one you used to be!”- Christina Greve

I recently stumbled across Christina’s words about comparison and it hit me like a ton of bricks. She said it perfectly. So I left it alone and decided to share.

com·par·i·son

kəmˈperəsən/

noun

noun: comparison; plural noun: comparisons

1.

the act or instance of comparing.

We all start somewhere. And 9 times out of 10 that beginning point isn’t pretty. What’s important is that we keep moving. Striving. Working. Learning. Improving. Perfecting. That’s a good point above. What we see from other photographer’s is their highlight reel. We don’t see the imperfect photos that they deleted. We don’t usually see our neighbor’s stressful day. Social Media has been both a blessing and a curse to the way we view the world. We post the best of the best because we want to show that off. We enjoy showing everyone how happy we are and “Hey look at this perfect photo I just took of this adorable new baby?!” And then when we turn around and view our own work, culling a session and we think “Ew. Look at these photos that didn’t turn out. I had something in mind but I couldn’t get the baby to cooperate. This is my fault. My photos aren’t as good as ____. They’re perfect. They were always perfect. I’m sure of it. I’ll never be as good as ____.” Sound familiar? Yeah. I thought so.

So why don’t we put a stop to it all? Every award winning movie star was once a struggling actor. Every great author once was embarrassed to let someone read a chapter out of her scribbles. Every athlete was once out of shape. The same goes for us. Every amazing photographer you see was once just first picking up a camera. It’s a process. Enjoy it! Pick up your camera every day. Keep practicing. Keep moving forward. STOP COMPARING!! Comparison is the thief of joy. The only photographer you should be comparing yourself to is the photographer you used to be. I tell myself this almost daily as a reminder.

Want some photo proof that it gets better? Look at my editing too… even that changes drastically as I’ve grown and learned more about Photoshop and post processing. I am thankful for every stepping stone I’ve had in this journey. 🙂

(PS – All of the before photos are of my own babies 🙂 )