How does one know if an image is successful? How do you define successful anyway?

Of course, art is subjective and what you like is no indication of what someone else would like. There is a very broad palette of media and styles being created out there in the world of Art and Fine Art photography and an equally broad spread of tastes in art consumers. Is success sales? Or having a high profile as photographic artist? Or being popular? Or just that feeling that you get when you know that you got it just right?

Well out of the images that I have sold, there are several that I would never have bought myself, but “What do I know?” is a question that I often ask of myself. Funnily, I guess I must know something, because I took those pictures myself didn’t I? Amongst those pieces that I have sold are images so diametrically different from each other that it sometimes boggles the mind trying to rationalise it. I have to believe that I produce Art images, saleable images, covetable and hangable images, and continue trying to capture what I feel is right. I don’t get hung up on the technical nitty gritty of photography. I know how to get the best out of my cameras, I understand all that technical stuff. However, the image is paramount; I take the picture, my eyes, my brain, my heart - the camera just records it.

When I see a “moment”, I want to capture it. I see the world in graphic terms of light, shade, form and colour. Photography allows me to steal those things and keep them for myself (and others too). If I like it, then it is a successful image, if someone else likes it too, then all the better.

Nick Fuller of JadeGreenImage