Expectations of Myself…
Writer, photographer and YouTuber Sean Tucker posted a video recently in which he shared all the photos he took (200+) during a day-long street walk in Amsterdam.
Outside Amsterdam train station (my image!)
Sharing these photos, he described his thoughts behind them, what he was trying to achieve and ultimately - whether (m)any of these actually worked out to the extent that he would be happy sharing them on social - or indeed on his website etc.
Apart from being in Amsterdam and taking photos from places I know pretty well, I was interested in his overall thought process and ways of operating.
What really got my attention though was a part in his video where he talked about setting our own expectations in a realistic way when we go out for a day like that, and then breaking these expectations down into actual numbers.
Numbers, not just for a day in Amsterdam - or wherever - but moving on into the number of photos we could try to realistically aim for in our lifetime. Legacy photos.
To give you context, here are his numbers:
Sketch Images 3-5 per day
Publication Images 20-40 per year
Portfolio Images 3-5 per year
Legacy Images 3-7 in a lifetime….
Sketch images are the type of shot we could hope to come away with after a day walking around our city, the area where we live, the beach - or whatever locale we choose. These then would typically end up on our social account.
Publication images would be in a zine we might publish, our website or similar. Images that we’re proud of and want to share.
Portfolio images are the ones that we feel really represent us. Our best work that end up on our landing page of our website or however else we share the images that we feel show to the world what we’re really about.
Legacy images are the ones that people know us by. The image is associated with us, even remembered after our passing, they are that strong.
All of which got me to asking myself about where I stand with these numbers.
What are my expectations of myself?
Tucker himself felt that he, as of now, didn’t yet have any legacy images, so that was comforting. Sort of!
In terms of coming away after a day with 3 to 5 images, that sort of works. Some days zilch, but other days, 3 to 5 is reasonable I find.
One of the images (montage) I’ve printed off this year.
I haven’t yet done a zine (on the list…) but in terms of images I share on the website, or even ones I don’t but print off myself, I’m coming away with those sort of numbers. I’ve just counted for this year (2026) 27 images I’ve put on the website and/or printed off. Interesting that it tallies with Sean Tucker’s numbers. I know my standards aren’t near his so if I ended up with 50 for this year, that’s fine for me but it does tell me I need to be more self-critical.
Of course all this depends on how many photos we actually take in a given year, so maybe a better way would be describing this in percentage terms not hard numbers.
Portfolio images is where it gets tricky. I recently changed the layout of the website which I now realise doesn’t properly allow space for those images I’m really happy with, unless they fall into specific categories I’ve created on the website. Duh…
And of course, the few - and I’m really talking about a few - photos I’ve taken this year that I would be happy to put on my portfolio, don’t fall easily into the website categories.
So whilst I think about that, here are 2 images taken this year that I’m treating as portfolio. For now!
All of which closes the circle back to legacy images…
Whilst I’m sure we can all think of some photos that are real legacy ones such as the Afghan girl with green eyes (Steve McCurry); Lee Miller in Hitler’s bath (David Scherman) and any one of the aftermath of the twin towers on 9-11 (David Turney), I’m not thinking at that level.
More - what images that we’ve taken - would we like people to remember us by?
I need to start thinking.
What about you?
