I sometimes forget that as a professional photographer my images are not guaranteed. What I mean by that is not that I can not guarantee great quality images but that professional photographers are human and mess up. That even the best among us can take absolutely terrible images sometimes.

Every professional photographer I know has said at least once that they can take and do take bad images. That bad images are just a part of being a photographer. That we will miss shots, or mess up shots and what we do with that experience is what makes us professionals.

The professional photographer will use missed shots and bad images to learn and grow from. They will not accept defeat and think that a bad image makes them a bad photographer. The simple truth is a bad photograph makes us human.

I have been a professional photographer for thirteen years now and I am no stranger to missing a shot or taking a bad photograph. I hold myself to incredibly high standards and sometimes even I can not attain them.

So much so that even when I know my images are good, or that I have done everything in my power I want to offer clients extras because I didn’t live up to my expectations for myself not because my images failed. This was apparent with the wedding I did in November.

I had been allotted an hour and half for bridal party and bride and groom portraits however as is normal for wedding days everything was behind schedule and the allotted portrait time was where it was going to take a hit and cut my time to do a great deal of important images. This meant I had to skip a lot of poses and things I wanted to do, that I thought would be fun moments captured with the wedding party and couple however; the bride and groom ultimately had to make the decision to only have a handful of posed portraits because of time constraints.

And that made me panic when editing because I just didn’t have everything I wanted. It wasn’t that the photos weren’t good it was simply that I had anticipated more and then had less than my usual to work with and it made me absolutely paranoid that they would hate the few images we actually had the time to take.

But this couple is phenomenal and knew what they wanted, were realistic in their expectations and even knew that they would only ever use so many so less was more for them! So photographers, relax the reigns, it’s ok to make mistakes, clients just know that we aren’t perfect but that we will do everything in our power to get them the images they want. Be communicative during the session and editing if you feel the pressure but most of all trust your clients when they say they love your work and what you did get. They aren’t lying and even if we are our own harshest critic we need to listen to the people who hire us and trust them.