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As a person that pursues photography as an expressive art form, how do you measure your success as a photographer? Early in our photo journey, when our skills are improving by leaps and bounds, our images get better and better. Improvement is quite obvious, even within the span of a few days or weeks. We make stronger images and more of them. And we tend to measure success by the number of good images captured during each session with the camera.

But … should we continue to measure success by the number of ‘keepers’ for the long term?

As our camera skills improve, and our photographic eye refines, we tend to take fewer photos. Captures are more considered. And fewer photos means fewer keepers. Our perception of a strong photo also becomes more critical. The keeper rate falls.

Perhaps as you evolve as a photographer, so must how you view and gage success with your photographs. Instead of measuring the outcomes, think about measuring the effort, the act of mastering the craft.

In this episode, I share thoughts about this topic and why I think the practicing photographer should rethink how you measure success with your photography.