I’m a very nice guy, but when I really think about my nature as an artist, I realize that I’m very selfish and very competitive.

There are a select number of people I enjoy shooting with, mostly because they have very different eyes than me, and because there’s a great deal of mutual respect. If they spot something interesting, I won’t shoot it, and vice versa. Or at the very least, we take very different approaches to the subject..

But the majority of the time, I shoot alone because I’m very concerned with losing shots to other photographers. I don’t want to be in a situation where I want to say “hey, this one is mine!”

For example, take this image:

This is my favorite image out of the thousands I’ve shot this winter.

I’m sure I’d enjoy it less if someone had been sitting next to me taking the same exact photo.

In today’s era of social media circle jerking, I feel like the photography world is way too friendly. There’s all this sharing and cooperating and mutual butt-kissing.

Everything is AMAZING.

Everything is OMG INSPIRATIONAL.

Forget that shit.

I want to make images that are better than yours, and I hope you’re trying to make images that are better than mine.

Don’t just retweet and reblog and like what you see; top it.

Note: this was inspired by a great essay by Texas photographer visualsciencekirk: Lonely hunter. Better hunt.

1. mysecretlife5790 liked this
2. borisla said: Lol i like it. I’m still quite new to photography so i enjoy feedback. But there a lack of criticism
3. borisla liked this
4. gfxced said: We roll on our own :)
5. infinitefern reblogged this from michaelcomeau-blog and added:

   interesting…

6. gfxced liked this
7. infinitefern liked this
8. kenmurk liked this
9. minimumdensity said: Completely on point, Michael.
10. minimumdensity liked this
11. michaelcomeau-blog posted this