I am sure I will keep going on about it, and also spam my Instragram now, but having a camera back is a great feeling. I am no Peter McKinnon but to try and build my skills as much as possible I have been watching loads of YouTube, and one point in particular has struck a cord with me and applies to so much of life.

James Popsys discuses some tips for beginner photographers, not the usual shutter speed and ISO stuff, but actual practice advice on getting better. You see, in photography it’s pretty hard to judge how well your progression is coming on. The easy thing to do is compare your images to ones shared by your favorite photographers and get down beat about it. While it’s important to remember their skill level is something to aim for, what we don’t see is their trash can.

For every stunning image shared there are hundreds, if not thousands, of images in the bin. All we see is the polished end result curated to share online, and that goes for almost everything in life. For every runner that jogs past your flat out sprint. Or every writer pushing out amazingly written concise posts. We don’t see the whole story. No one is present for the painful miles of hard work, the deleted drafts and indeed everything else that goes on behind the scenes.

This could be said for all social media too, comparing your insides to others outsides can be completely demotivating when you are trying to learn a skill or just get better at something. What is worse is that we all know it with ourselves, we pick the best of everything to showcase, but forget when consuming others work. However keeping in mind other peoples trash can is exactly the same as yours can be vitally important.

I am a big proponent of marginal gains, and improving steadily and consistently over time in whatever it is we choose to do. Spending time to make sure we are working towards a goal at all times and only using others to motivate us in the correct way. No matter how good the end product may be, we all have a trash can full of rubbish that never sees the light of day.