The post, titled “Doomed to Mediocrity“, and the follow-up posted titled “Doomed(?) Revisted” really hit home for me.

The basis for the original post was a letter received from a photographer who felt that they were doomed to mediocrity because they didn’t feel as though they were able to focus on anything.  The photographer writes:

I don’t do expert well. I do bouncing around, try everything once well. Chalk it up to my being Gemini, too much coffee or ADD. I can get good, and focus for short periods of time but when the next shiny thing comes along – zoom, off I go..

David duChemin and his readers provide some excellent tips..jump over and read those.

As for me….I feel the same way as the person who wrote into David.

I have a lot of interests.

Photography (of course!) is a passion and has become a large part of my life these days but I’m also working on a doctorate in information systems and have a few entrepreneurial activities that I want to be able to focus.

But…do I have the time to do all this ‘stuff’?  Can I do all of these things well?  Can I really be a great photographer without focusing solely on the art and craft of taking great photographs?

So it brings up the question:  Is it OK to be an average photographer?

For me, it is.

I don’t have time to be an expert at much….but I don’t really want to be.   I’ll never be the world’s best photographer.  I may grow into being a decent wildlife photographer and would love to be able to make a living doing that, but I don’t think I’ll ever be a world-renowned photographer.

So…it’s OK (for me) to be an average photographer. I love being in the outdoors shooting wildlife and landscapes and would love to make some money doing it but I realize there are people out there who are much smarter, much better photographers and who work much harder than I do at the craft of photography. They’ll be the experts.

Average isn’t great, but it isn’t supposed to be.

If you want to be a world-renowned photographer, you’ll need to work hard, study hard and catch a little bit of luck.

If you want to make a living at photography, you’ll need to be a bit better than average.

But, if you’re like me, and love photography for the sake of photography a, enjoy being ‘average’.  Enjoy your shooting and enjoy your life.

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