Advice for photographers from Martin Parr

I recently came across a manifesto by the documentary photographer Martin Parr. Some of the advice seemed helpful, so I thought I would share it:

1. Look and learn from other photographers.
2. Identify what makes you like their images.
3. Find a subject you feel strongly about.
4. Select the images you like and understand why they are interesting.
5. Do more like that.
6. Keep shooting more images.
7. Acknowledge you will mainly take failures.
8. Get excited by what you have discovered.
9. Don’t wish you could become a famous photographer.
10. If you do, you will fail – wrong priorities.

If you want a copy, you can download a poster of the manifesto from WePresent. One caveat, it is subtitled ‘Ten rules of photography for emerging photographers’. But, as the street photographer Simon Ellingworth often points out, ‘Rules are for people who have yet to discover their artistic intent.’