"All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste" - Ira Glass

I don't know about you, but when I look at the photos I took in the past (not too long ago actually!) I can't believe I thought they were any good, good enough to even post some of them.

I'm not talking about technicalities here. The exposure is right (why wouldn't it be, cameras are pretty straightforward to use nowadays), but the composition and the editing are bad. And still, at the time I thought they were good.

What changed since then? Have we become better photographers? Sure, but how are we better exactly? I think it's simple: we've improved our taste, thus our art.

Get inspired by others

Read books, look at art, watch movies, write down ideas. The more you see, the more ideas will come to you.

Not too much though! You still have to get out there and do the work.

There's something to learn from bad photos too

I believe it's also useful to look at images you don't like, every once in a while. And wonder why not. Is that something you don't like in that photo present in yours as well?

Surround yourself with art you like. Print photos from Instagram or Twitter, the quality of the print is not important. Buy books. Look at those images you like and ask yourself why you like them.

Let your images rest for a while

And don't forget to separate yourself from the photo. We take photos in the first place because we felt something, and if that feeling is recent and still "fresh", we can get the wrong idea and think the photo actually communicates such feeling. Take the photo, look at it, and put it away for a while. Come back one, two weeks later. Even longer. And see if it still feels the same way.