The 2nd biggest challenge you have as a photographer, is in developing the skill to look at your work from the outside.

Being connected to your work is important. But in order to be able to judge and tune your work accordingly, you need to be able to step outside of yourself, and view / judge your work like you would if you were looking at someone else’s work.

Good artists are able to be part of their work while at the same time exist outside of their work.

How you achieve that is not something I can advise you on. But I would imagine that we are all self-editors. In our jobs and daily encounters we often have to audit how well our work is being done, how much time we are spending with our family, and whether we have the right balance in our lives. This process is no different from the act of looking at one’s own art and judging it. We all step outside of our lives to look within, and we do that in order to try to get some sense of objectivity about it.

Creating art has always been about the marriage between creating an idea, and then shaping the idea. Often new ideas are roughly formed. They then go through a process of being shaped and finely-tuned. That is where a sense of judgement about the work comes in. It is also when we need to be able to self-judge what we are doing.

2nd hardest thing to do as a photographer, is to learn to be objective about what we do. To be able to step outside of our work while at the same time maintain a connection to it.