We make our choices

I was viewing the Website for Ellis Vener. What can you say about those amazing images? I can only ask myself why I'm not doing more and better photography. I'm good but far from professional, something inside loses interest for the last few steps between a very good and excellent photography or image and the few more to outstanding. I've tried, but I always seem to find myself going in circles back where I started wondering what to do, but knowing more failure than success.

In the end, I wonder if it's just who we are, and sometimes or with somethings the passion to go beyond a certain level isn't there or is there but only with so much effort you lose everything else. Meaning beyond a certain level, a few people have it and the rest of us don't. So we have to make a choice. A choice between overwhelming dedication to a goal we likely won't achieve, or just doing our best and living with that.

We know that to strive to do better is good, and we can always do better, but for the many the cost for the gain becomes a losing proposition, more and more energy and feelings expended for less and less gain, never achieving the goal that a few do with natural ability and hard work. The hard work is common, the ability, talent and skill aren't. And that's where we have to make a choice.

I've always said I'm an occasional observational photographer. I photograph what I see and present what I thought I saw. No more or no less. It's my comfort zone. And occasionally I push myself into being creative, but that passion isn't natural or often. I have to keep pushing myself until my mind quits, knowing it's far less than other could or would do.

But that's me and the choices I make. The question in the end is if I'm comfortable with that. And it's also the beauty of life and photography, doing better is always relative. Not to others but to ourself. And that's a choice we can all make.