Someone asked me recently what my favorite photo is. Not my best, not my most popular. My favorite.
I had to think about it longer than I expected.
There’s a difference between the two that I think is worth sitting with. Your best image is often decided by others. It’s the one that performs; it gets the most likes, the best feedback, sells the most prints. That performance is real, and it matters. But it’s not always the image you’d choose yourself.
Your favorite is something else entirely. It’s rarely about technical quality or how well it was received. It’s about what surrounds it. The conditions that morning. How long you waited. Whether you almost didn’t go. The photograph becomes a container for something that only you fully understand.
Two images stand out when I ask myself this question.
The first was taken at one of my favorite spots here in the Lofoten Islands. It was a brutal day. The kind of day where you debate whether to go out at all. The waves were more than twice my height, crashing over the rocks with a force that made the ground shake beneath me. Standing there was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, in the way that only a truly wild place in truly wild conditions can be.
I had been going through a creative rut for a while before that day. The kind where motivation is harder to find, and the work feels less exciting than it used to. That session on the shore broke something loose. The image I came home with gave me a boost I hadn’t expected. I look at it now, and I don’t just see the rocks and the waves. I see the moment things started moving again.
The second image is from Haukland beach, fifteen minutes from my house. Most people who visit Lofoten photograph Haukland, it’s one of the most well-known beaches in the archipelago. But this image is nothing like the classic shot. It was taken in near hurricane conditions during winter, with blowing snow covering almost everything and the mountains barely visible through the storm.
It’s one of the few images of my own that I’m genuinely proud of. Not because it performed well, or because it’s technically flawless. But because I know exactly what it took to stand there and make it.
I think your favorite image usually tells you something important about yourself as a photographer.
It tends to point toward what actually excites you, not what you think should excite you, not what gets the most engagement, but what got you out in brutal weather on a day when staying home would have been far more comfortable. That instinct is worth paying attention to. It’s easy to get caught up in creating work that performs well, that’s technically correct, that fits a particular style or aesthetic. It’s harder, and probably more important, to keep creating work that means something to you specifically.
Your favorite image is a compass. It’s showing you where your real motivation lives.
I’d be curious to know yours. What’s the photo you’ve taken that you feel most connected to, and why? It doesn’t have to be your most impressive image. Just the one that means the most to you.
Hi Chris,
First off, I’m no longer posting my photos on socual media. So the final decision depends on my appreciation. That’s quite empowering after 5 years of likes or no likes.
Often, I will do a photo shooting and will come out with one or two favorites. I’m working on getting what is my best shot !
You’re right, the favorite shot may not be technically perfect. Yet it evokes something for me. How the photo shooting went or the évents around this shot
My last favorite was of a horse that was in a horse show I had to shoot above or between plastic cording.. Here comes one of the horses . It stands right in front of me in all its glory. Proud, dirty (it just rolled in the sand !) and so beautiful.
I was quite glad to capture such a candid moment.
All the best.
Your article gave me a comfort. Certain scenes move me emotionally. When that happens, I try to capture that emotion with my camera and develop the RAW file to what I recall of that time and experience. That’s a good feeling, one that motivates me. My objective is to capture scenes that I want to look at again and again and never get tired of. I’m learning that others may, but most won’t, get motivated by what motivated me when they see the final product. I’m not a professional…more of a serious amateur. When someone sees a piece of my work they really like, I make a print for them as a gift. That is very satisfying.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, they are impactful and important.
Deciding which photograph is your favourite is a difficult task, especially if you’ve been taking photos for a long time.
It’s usually not just one, but many, depending on your physical and emotional state. Usually, these are the ones that, when you look at them, seem to transport you back to the feelings you had at the moment the shutter clicked. It could be elation, a sense of ‘flow’, fear, memories of people, or a personal triumph. I always take photographs in the hope that there will be a favourite shot and that I’ll come to appreciate it in time. And I’ll be the main judge.
Yes! Images evoke emotion in others but sometimes they were more “chore-like” as in, “go here, make this shot.”
My favorites always involve who I was with.
Not sure I have single favorite either. Kind of easy to answer your question by picking a shot that took great effort to get to. One that was “extreme” in some way. I grabbed my Mamiya RB67 and left the ship, and my in-law’s, and took a hike up the hill in one of the ports of call on the cruise. (Probably Puerto Vallarta) In a little neighborhood I found, I happed upon a mom and her 2 little gals. They were perhaps 9 or 10 years old and they weren’t excited to see me, or even to cooperate. Mom, however, trusted me and we set the two little girls on a wall. They stopped crying and reaching for their mommy just long enough to look at the camera. I had one chance and thankfully my tripod and camera were set and ready to go. In a 60th of a second I got the only shot that was going to happen that day. How wonderful to meet a gracious, trusting, kind woman that day and get one of the nicest portraits I have ever taken, even if it was traumatic for the 2 girls. All this done without understanding each other or speaking a word! Yes it is framed, and in my house today.
Not sure I have single favorite either. Kind of easy to answer your question by picking a shot that took great effort to get to. One that was “extreme” in some way. I grabbed my Mamiya RB67 and left the ship, and my in-law’s, and took a hike up the hill in one of the ports of call on the cruise. (Probably Puerto Vallarta) In a little neighborhood I found, I happed upon a mom and her 2 little gals. They were perhaps 9 or 10 years old and they weren’t excited to see me, or even to cooperate. Mom, however, trusted me and we set the two little girls on a wall. They stopped crying and reaching for their mommy just long enough to look at the camera. I had one chance and thankfully my tripped and camera were set and ready to go. In a 60th of a second I got the only shot that was going to happen that day. How wonderful to meet a gracious, trusting, kind woman that day and get one of the nicest portraits I have ever taken, even if it was traumatic for the 2 girls. All this done without understanding each other or speaking a word! Yes it is framed, and in my house today.
I don’t have a single favorite, but on the top of my list is a photo I took of Antelope Canyon with two very wide and bright sun rays. At the time, there was a severe dust storm, and the dust brought out the light. I also wrecked two camera bodies changing lenses, allowing dust and sand to get into the works. I almost didn’t even get the picture. I had walked the full length and back again seeing nothing. If there hadn’t been people at the entrance, I would never have turned around to see what they saw. Interestingly, that same image is probably also my “best” in the sense it has won more awards, gotten more favorable comments, and sold better than any of my other images. So this time, the two coincide.