The notion of a “banger trap” pinned down something that I had been thinking about a lot lately as I scrolled through the endless posts by countless technically excellent photographers posting their best works.

All of those pictures of perfectly lit sunsets and amazingly hued mountain scapes and perfectly focussed wildlife glamour shots were technically awesome. Amazing. Aspirational and skilled.

And yet they made me feel almost nothing.

I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled and my mind was on repeat saying: yup, yup, seen it, yup, lovely, yup, yup…

They are all very skilled photographers and will likely have successful careers selling their talent and their banger content. But after seeing the same perfect photos more times than I can count and the abundance of kudos and praise? Well, it strikes me that it starts to seem like little more than a factory product, mass produced and polished.

Instead?

Show me something real. Show me life. Show me imperfection. Show me something I see everyday in a different way that gives me a new perspective on the mundane. Show me more than perfect.

I get it. Showcasing our technical best work is a calling card of skill and experience, but it’s also a trap: a snare line upon which it is easy to trip and snag, that the banger is the ultimate and final stage of making great art. 

Because I don’t think it is.