It is the human condition for us to believe that we are above average in various skills. Think for a moment about how you see yourself as a photographer. Almost surely you see yourself as above average. Let’s face it, there are a whole lot of people out there running around whose photography consists of making selfies with a mobile device. Of course, they think they are above average photographers, too. And, no doubt, some of them are.

There is a certain irony, though, about our perception of competence. Photographers with the least ability tend to overestimate their skill. How and why this happens is well documented by two researchers, David Dunning and Justin Kruger. It is described as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Oddly, it is not just an issue of the least competent overestimating skill, but also that the most competent are underestimating skill.

2010 This was one of my earliest street photos. It is still one of my favorites. There is a country western song that I am paraphrasing, “I was as good one time as I ever am.” Maybe frequency of what might be considered a good photo is the critical difference between a new street photographer and an experienced street photographer.

The first stage of the Dunning-Kruger Effect is having little knowledge of a skill. The practice of photography is an incredibly complex discipline. Because new photographers, and some photographers who have stalled in their learning, know so little about the complexity that when they learn even the basics of photography, they think they know it all. Believing that they know it all, leads them to seeing their photographs as exceptional. Perhaps the exposure and focus in their photo is perfect. Exceptional photo, right? It is not an issue of ego. They simply cannot evaluate their performance because they lack the expertise that is needed for such an evaluation. In my mind, this only becomes problematic if the photographer, perhaps unknowingly, sells their services before they are sufficiently competent. I have seen some truly bad professional family pictures. Let the buyer beware.

2017 This has a new crop that I believe improves the balance over the original crop.

The second stage in the Dunning-Kruger effect is having moderate knowledge. This is the stage where the photographer has to settle in for the long haul. It can be pretty discouraging when we realize just how much there is to learn. During this period, we are apt to shift to being hyper critical of our work. Since most of us are in the moderate knowledge stage, the question is, what can we do to properly evaluate our work and continue to improve it?

The general Dunning-Kruger solution to properly evaluate your skill and improve it has two parts:

Educate yourself so that you understand where your skill level is on the continuum of that kind of skill.

I do think photographers have a little advantage in being able to figure out the photography continuum of skill. If, for example, your skill is writing software, where exactly do you go to find examples of elegantly written code and would you recognize it if you saw it? Photographers have unlimited opportunities to see photographs and, unlike going through software code, it does not take us long to add them into our mental database of photos.

Most of us start with social media. I have literally looked at thousands upon thousands of street photos on Instagram and Facebook. I absolutely understand, for example, which photographers on Street Photography Challenge are going to consistently post high levels of quality shots. It is not an equal playing field. By the way, I find my Instagram community much broader than just a street photography community. I suggest joining a dedicated street photography Facebook group to really see a lot of contemporary street photography.

There is also opportunity to study the work of the masters of street photography online or through photo books. The importance of understanding what makes good street photography is a reason you will see the advice, time and again, that if you really want to improve your photography, you should spend less on gear and more on photo books.

Here is an idea new to me. Go on photo walks with other street photographers and then share pictures. As a group, we tend to be lone wolves, but this is a very efficient way of coming to understand how we might see and compose things in a different, and perhaps better, way.

Keep learning.

Write a blog. Eric Kim relentlessly advises photographers to do this. It is why I started writing a blog. Ho boy. It is a learning experience.

Listen to podcasts. My pandemic pastime was to march through the podcast, The Candid Frame. I am currently marching through the teaching uTube videos by Pat Kay. I guarantee you will be hearing his name again in future blogs.

Get original. I am fascinated by the efforts of my friend, Stephanie Duprie Routh. She is studying famous street photographers, currently, Fred Herzog, and then going out to take pictures in that style. You can see Stephanie’s Instagram gallery at @stephanieduprierouth.

Now for a little color theory.

About Cones and Rods

Cones and rods are the light sensing cells on the retina. Cones are the photoreceptors that allow us to see color. Rods help us see in dim light and distinguish shades of grey. Each human retina has about 125 million rods and about 6 million cones. That represents approximately 70% of the sensory receptors in a human body.

Each cone responds to exactly one kind of light. About 64% of them respond by absorbing long wavelengths of light (light that produces red), about 33% of them respond by absorbing medium-wavelengths of light (light that produces green) and about 2% of them respond by absorbing short-wavelengths of light (light that produces blue).

It is fortunate and very efficient that humans, or at least most humans, have only three types of cones that transmit color information to the brain. Among other things, it means there only has to be three lights at every point on a video display to produce any color in the world. That is exactly the RGB color space. It will be the topic of discussion next week.

Dedicated to Street

The Dunning-Kruger Effect and Photography