Beginners Mind: What I Learned from My Worst Photos

Feb 28

The photo that was published in the local paper in 2012

I got my first ‘real’ camera in 2013… a $300 Nikon D3200. My first camera that wasn’t a phone. A local newspaper had just published a photo I took of a sunset at Lake Tahoe, and naturally, I thought I was a professional. I took my camera everywhere, convinced I was on the verge of something big. A rising star in the photography world, the Ansel Adams of the Midwest, surely, it would only be a matter of time before National Geographic called.

Not long after, I was grocery shopping with my roommates. The fluorescent Safeway lights hummed over the cereal aisle. I stood there holding a box of Cheerios, and my ego was completely shattered.

My friend David asked about my newfound passion. “So, you know what the rule of thirds is?”

I smirked. “Of course.” (Did he forget I was just published by a small Indiana newspaper?)

“What is it?” he prodded.

I stared at the linoleum floor. I had absolutely no clue. I was a beginner. A rank amateur running on unearned confidence. It was the most liberating realization of my life.

I was living at Lake Tahoe, the perfect place to be a beginner photographer. Nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains, it’s the largest and second-deepest alpine lake in the United States. The water is stunningly clear, with an average visibility of 70 feet below the surface. Friends told me it was impossible to take a bad picture there. Challenge accepted.

In those first months, I made every mistake imaginable. I blew out highlights. My horizon lines pitched violently like a sinking ship. But I didn't care. I was having too much fun.

Eventually, I started recognizing patterns. My workflow became more comfortable. My photos went from Why does this exist? to Hey, that’s not bad! I wouldn’t say I was getting better, but slowly, I was getting slightly less bad.

With this progress came confidence, and I started to experiment. Once I let go of the pressure to be good, I tried things just to see what would happen. I remember waking up at 3 a.m., trekking down to the docks under a new moon to take long-exposure photos of the lake. They turned out great! Nice! But the time-lapse I tried to take of the sunrise? A disaster. It captured something, but it definitely wasn’t a sunrise.

Field Notes: The Beginner's Tech Stack

You don't need a $4,000 rig to start. My D3200 was a plastic toy compared to what I shoot with now, but it forced me to understand light instead of leaning on autofocus. If you are paralyzed by gear choices, grab a cheap body, a 35mm prime lens, and go break some rules. Check out my Point + Shoot gallery for proof that limitations breed creativity.

Here’s the dirty secret of getting good at something. It ruins the magic.

Slowly, my framing improved. The local paper turned into magazine spreads. I moved to Oahu. Hawaii Magazine called me one of the island's best adventure photographers. I spent three years shooting free-dives with sharks and chasing light across volcanic ridgelines. By all accounts, I had made it.

The validation felt incredible for about five minutes. Then it mutated into a cage.

Expectation is a parasite. I stopped taking risks. I stood in front of roaring waterfalls, the mist soaking my jacket, the light piercing through the canopy in razor-sharp rays, and I felt absolutely nothing. My brain was too busy doing math. Will the algorithm push this? Will clients buy prints of this? The wild experiment had turned into a desk job.

Flash forward to 10 years later. I was clearing space on my M1 Pro MacBook. A mindless, soul-sucking chore of archiving old client files. I dug into a folder buried beneath a dozen "Final_FINAL_v3" directories and found my Tahoe archives.

I clicked through the grid. I laughed. I cringed. A heavy wave of nostalgia hit me in the chest. I remembered the fearless kid who took those shots. I admired him.

I dragged the ancient files into Lightroom. (Always shoot in RAW. Period. If you take away anything from my ramblings, let it be that.

A decade of muscle memory took over. I pulled down the highlights. I pushed the shadows. I watched the image come back to life on the screen. I couldn’t believe it… the photos were good.

Like actually good!

The focus was soft. The composition was slightly crooked. But they possessed a raw, frantic energy I haven't captured in years. They had soul. Technical perfection is cheap. You can buy a camera today that does the math for you. You cannot buy the chaotic, hungry curiosity of a beginner.

I sat there staring at the monitor, thinking. I want that raw hunger back. Technical mastery means nothing if you lose the wild curiosity that dragged you out into the dark in the first place.

Go look at your oldest, worst photos. You might find exactly what you've been missing.

Got a chaotic early photo you actually love? Tag me on Instagram, or dive into my Galleries to see where ten years of trial and error actually led me.