Blog #12 - The Myth of the Perfect Shot (and Why You Should Share Anyway)

There’s this unspoken myth in photography, the idea that somewhere out there is the “perfect shot.” A frame so flawless in composition, light, subject, timing, and post-processing that it silences all debate. You see hints of it online in the way people comment on photos with words like “nailed it” or “perfection” as though photography were a maths problem and someone had solved it once and for all.

I don’t buy it.

Because if there was such a thing as perfection, I think we’d all have packed our cameras away by now. What would be the point of going out, rolling film through a 50-year-old Fujica, or carrying three kilos of Sony glass up a hill at sunrise if we were all chasing the same definitive answer? (Not that I’m usually up for sunrise anyway. I am far more likely to arrive when the good light has already gone and I am squinting at my histogram wondering where I went wrong.)

The myth of the perfect shot has less to do with photography itself and more to do with comparison. Scroll through social media and it is a conveyor belt of flawless waterfalls, auroras, street portraits, and wildlife close-ups that look like they belong in National Geographic. What you don’t see are the 4000 missed frames that came before, the lens smears, the under-exposed mistakes, or the photographer quietly muttering under their breath because the bird turned the wrong way in the wind.

When you start out, that comparison can crush your confidence. I have seen it in beginners groups, which makes it even more exasperating, where someone proudly posts their first attempts only to be met with a wall of “too soft,” “bad composition,” or “should’ve used a prime.” Or even worse than that, the dreaded laughing emoji reaction, and this is in groups that are supposedly there to encourage and guide people who are literally just starting out.

From a "Beginners" Facebook group with over 1 million members.

I put a lot of it down to social media. If half these people spoke to someone in person the way they do online, they would probably get punched. But because they are sitting behind a keyboard on the other side of the planet, they can fire off dismissive comments without ever thinking about the person on the receiving end. I don’t actually disagree with the content of many of the critiques. Sometimes the points are fair. But the delivery is what makes it feel like an attack instead of advice. That difference matters, especially for beginners.

Sharing the imperfect

I have come to believe that sharing the journey is more important than chasing mastery. Some of my favourite photographs are not my “best” by any technical standard. They are the ones where Bow was holding her little NEX-5R with 14% battery left, or when I finally coaxed a 70-year-old Balda back to life and it rewarded me with a light leak and a blurry garden shed. Those are not perfect frames, but they are real, and they carry the story of where I was that day.

It is the same with the long overdue test roll I ran through my dad’s Fujica ST901, the camera that had been gathering dust in a drawer for 25 years. I took it on holiday to Portugal, fully expecting half the frames to come out blank. And yes, a few were ropey. But oddly, my favourite from the roll wasn’t the seascapes or the sunlit streets. It was a washed-out shot of a nondescript apartment block. Something about the colours, the slightly hazy exposure, and the sheer ordinariness of it made it feel honest. A perfect example of why technical mastery is not the only yardstick. As my base of people interested grows (I dont like the word followers), I've had a few remarks on that image of the apartment block!

Said apartment block in Portugal (again)

Closer to home, I found myself photographing Sock Man, the local statue in Loughborough. Dozens of people walk past him every day without a second glance, but putting him on a frame of film gave him a weight he doesn’t get in passing. It has become a bit of a family in-joke too, because every time Bow spots him she points and shouts, “Sock Man!” with all the excitement of someone who has just seen Big Ben for the first time. Again, not the sharpest or most dynamic image I have ever made, but one that means something because I took the time to notice.

Sockman on the Voigtlander Vito B

The trap of holding back

Perfectionism makes you hesitant. It keeps the photos on your hard drive, waiting for a mythical level of polish that never quite arrives. The more you wait, the more those moments lose their immediacy, until you have convinced yourself they were not worth sharing at all.

I have done this with both film and digital. With film it is even easier to hold back, because you tell yourself you will wait until the scans come back or do a proper edit later. With digital, it is a case of second-guessing every slider in Lightroom until you have managed to drain the life out of the photo entirely. Either way, the result is the same. The moment gets lost.

But the photos that resonate are not the ones you hold back. They are the ones you release before you have convinced yourself out of them. Sometimes I will post an image that I think of as a filler, and it turns out to be the one people actually respond to. Maybe because they can see themselves in the imperfection, rather than just admiring the technical sheen.

What are your goals?

A lot of this also comes down to what your goals are. If your dream is to become a published artist, to see your work in Vogue and sell a single image for $50,000, then yes, maybe you do need to approach things differently. You probably need to refine your craft, chase the technical mastery, and produce work that meets a very particular standard.

But for most of us, the goals are different. Personally, I have fallen hard into this hobby without really knowing how. Sharing the journey was never the plan, and I cannot even pinpoint how it got to this stage. Yet here I am, writing blogs about cameras older than me, posting film scans, and documenting the whole process almost as much as I take the photos themselves. Which is ridiculous really, because I have no idea if anyone actually reads these words.

I have even got a link where people can buy my photos. If that ever actually happens, you will be the first to know. But honestly, if I can sell just one print and fund a roll of film off the back of it, I will be happy. Selling my photos is not the goal. Documenting the journey is. Photography has become less about reaching a final destination and more about recording the road I am stumbling along.

Film vs. digital and the honesty in mistakes

I have spent a lot of time comparing my digital Sony setup with the vintage film cameras I have been collecting, and one thing keeps standing out. Film is honest about mistakes. If I miss focus on the Sony, I can check the screen, reshoot, and fix it on the spot. If I blow the highlights, there is a RAW file waiting to be rescued.

With film, there is no undo button. When the Baldixette lets in a light leak, that is it. When the exposure is off on the Fujica, the frame lives that way forever. Oddly, that honesty feels liberating. You stop aiming for perfection because the medium itself will not allow it. Instead, you learn to enjoy the quirks. The scratches, the odd colour casts, the slightly crooked horizon, all of them reminders that you were there, doing the thing, rather than polishing it endlessly afterwards.

Digital makes it far too easy to chase perfection. Film reminds you that perfection does not exist.

Why the journey matters more

Photography, at its heart, is not about being flawless. It is about noticing things most people walk past. It is about saying, “this mattered enough for me to stop and lift the camera.” And when you share those moments, even if the horizon tilts a little or the focus is soft, you invite other people into your way of seeing. That is what sticks with them, not whether you hit the technical bullseye.

For me, it often comes back to Bow’s questions. She will ask why I am pointing my camera at something ordinary: an old sign, a crack in the pavement, a shadow on the wall. Explaining it to her reminds me that photography is less about the image itself and more about the act of paying attention. And that is worth sharing, even when the frame is not perfect.

The below image for example, was on Stanange Edge in the Peak District when me and Bow went 'exploring'. As I kep getting closer and closer to the hole in the rocks for that perfect "Border" shot... Bow was shouting out commentary like a banksman reversing a lorry "Yep, thats it. Bit closer. Nearly there. Try that." ......Lunatic.

Letting go of the perfect shot

So if you are holding back because you think your work is not ready, or because you have convinced yourself you will look foolish next to the big names, I would say post it anyway. Share the near misses, the experiments, the clumsy first rolls. Let people see the process rather than just the polished product.

In a world already too full of filters and one-upmanship, honesty is far more refreshing than perfection.

And who knows, the frame you dismiss as “not good enough” might be the one that makes someone else pick up their camera, or reminds them that they do not need to have it all sorted before they start.

Because the truth is, there is no perfect shot. There is only the next one.