The only thing I have learned for sure over my creative time as a photographer, is that there is always much more to learn.

The dunning-kruger effect describes the curve in our confidence against experience over time.

I show this to point out a few things:

1. confidence in your abilities is not linear as your experience improves.

2. You can be very confident but know little. This is perhaps the worst place to be - when you think you’ve got it sorted but you really haven’t.

3. You can be low in confidence when your experience has improved. You may be creating good work, but you’re more critical of it.

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As someone who is a ‘teacher’ (I prefer guidance instructor), as I often find myself just giving folks permission to try out what they didn’t know they already knew, I’m aware of the different levels in participants handle on their own abilities.

I’ve met folks who lack a lot of confidence and yet the work is really good, and conversely folks who think they know more than they actually do. I think the later is very common. It can be a little frustrating because I’m dealing with someone who has a firm view about something when it’s clear they really don’t know what they’re talking about. But that is the nature of progress: we start off by thinking we know more than we actually do. It is only with experience that we realise how little we actually knew.

And if I’m honest, I am always finding this out. Every year I look back and realise ‘man, I thought I really knew this, and I still have a long way to go’.

Which is great, because I would just give up and stop if I figured that I knew it all.