If you speak with any sportsmen or women who have excelled in their sport you will hear them explain how the better they got, the slower the sport became to them. Where for others everything appeared to be happening at breakneck speed creating panic and bad decisions. The great sportsmen or women has time to make the right decision. In doing so thay have time to focus on the important details that make them great.

Actors and musicians are the same. I think photographers can be also. However, such an ability to feel comfortable in the act of any art form requires an acceptance of both the need for practice and confidence. A confidence that needs to be based in a sense of purpose and destiny. For an actor it could be a part, a role, for a musican, an album and for a photographer it could be a project or a body of work.

In my opinion great work comes from that sense of understanding of purpose, of knowing how, where, what, when, who and why the work is being made. It is that sense of purpose that provides the creative space in which to make work that is authentic. It is this authenticity that so often leads to important connections developing between the image and the viewer.

That is a state of purpose to aim for, in y opinion, but so often I see images that exist outside of that thought process, which therefore inevitably fail. Usually they are made by photographers who are trying too hard. Trying too hard to make ‘successful’ photographs that will illicite a reaction. I suggest that this work should now be referred to as PTTH. These photographers are not allowing themselves the space or time to consider why they are making photographs, outside of this base desire to be seen, to get a reaction. The result is images that feel like candy floss; too sweet, full of fake colour and of no nutritional value.

I wonder if you know what I mean. If not, let me provide a little more detail. The photographs I am referring to could contain any or all of these elements. Overacting models, HDR colour, people trying to be wacky, clumsy vignettes, corny jokes, dated ideas of ‘sexy’, garish dressing-up, obvious props, tired concepts, dodgy locations, gimmicks, trick lenses or post-production tricks. You may like to add your own observations to this list.

I’m not being a gate keeper here about what constitutes successful photography. I’m just using sports and other art forms as metaphors to explain success. The ability to relax into a process of making, that feels effortless to produce and view.

You may disagree with everything I have said here, that is your perogative. We all have opinions and there is no reason for them to align with each other. However, if you do, may I suggest that you think about why and how you approach your photography. The photography you see and the photography you like. Then consider the photography you make. You may just change your position on making photographs.

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8 magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020) and Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, (Orphans Publishing 2024). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

© Grant Scott 2026