The Most Important Thing You Can Do to Improve Your Photography

If someone asked me what has made the biggest difference in my photography over the past fifteen years, they might expect me to talk about camera gear, composition, or learning to shoot in manual mode.

Those things matter.

But they aren’t my answer.

The single most important habit I’ve developed is something anyone can do, regardless of what camera they own.

I rank my photographs.

After every trip, I sit down and go through every image I’ve taken. Whether I’ve spent a week with brown bears in Alaska, orangutans in Sumatra, or mountain gorillas in Uganda, I ask myself the same question over and over again:

Which photograph is better?

Then I keep asking until I’ve reduced thousands of images to just a handful.

It’s a surprisingly difficult exercise. We become emotionally attached to our photographs because we remember the effort it took to make them. The freezing mornings. The rain. The long hikes. The incredible wildlife encounter. But the viewer doesn’t know any of that. They only see the photograph.

Learning to separate the experience from the image changed everything for me.

Every Photograph Has to Earn Its Place

Early on, I was guilty of what I think most photographers do.

If I had ten nice photographs of a bear catching a salmon, I wanted to keep all ten. They were all sharp. They all brought back wonderful memories. Surely they all deserved to be shared.

They didn’t.

Over time, I realized that every photograph in my portfolio should have a reason for being there. If two images tell the same story, one of them is probably stronger than the other.

So now, every new photograph has to compete against every photograph I’ve ever taken.

If I photograph a polar bear today, I don’t compare it to yesterday’s images. I compare it to every polar bear photograph I’ve made over the last decade.

If it isn’t better—or at least meaningfully different—then it doesn’t make the cut.

That mindset pushes me to become a better photographer every single year.

One Extraordinary Photograph Is Worth More Than One Hundred Good Ones

We’re surrounded by volume.

Social media encourages us to post constantly. Hard drives fill with hundreds of thousands of images. It’s easy to believe that more photographs somehow make us better photographers.

I think the opposite is true.

I’d much rather create one photograph that people remember for years than one hundred that they scroll past in seconds.

When I think about my favorite wildlife photographers, I don’t remember thousands of their images.

I remember a few.

The truly unforgettable ones.

Those are the photographs we should all be striving to make.

Ranking Reveals Your Style

One unexpected benefit of this process is that it helps you discover what kind of photographer you actually are.

When you consistently rank your work, patterns begin to emerge.

Maybe your strongest photographs always use dramatic light.

Maybe you’re drawn to intimate portraits.

Maybe you love showing animals within vast landscapes instead of filling the frame.

Maybe your best images always capture behaviour rather than simply documenting an animal.

These aren’t accidents.

They’re clues.

They’re your artistic voice beginning to emerge.

The more honest you are when ranking your work, the easier it becomes to recognize what truly excites you as a photographer. Once you understand that, you stop chasing other people’s styles and start refining your own.

Your Best Photograph Will Change

One of the things I love most about photography is that our taste evolves.

I’ve gone back through old folders and discovered photographs I barely noticed when I first edited them. Years later, they suddenly stood out to me.

I’ve also looked at images I once considered portfolio-worthy and wondered what I ever saw in them.

That’s part of growing.

As your photography improves, your standards improve with it.

Your rankings shouldn’t be fixed forever. They’re a living reflection of who you are as a photographer today, and they’ll continue to change as you do.

My Challenge to You

The next time you return from a trip, don’t just edit your photographs.

Rank them.

Start with your best fifty.

Reduce them to twenty.

Then ten.

Then five.

Finally, force yourself to choose just one.

Not your friend’s favourite.

Not the one you think Instagram will like the most.

The one that represents the very best of what you’re capable of creating today.

It’s harder than it sounds.

But I think you’ll discover something surprising.

The exercise isn’t really about finding your best photograph.

It’s about learning why it’s your best.

And once you understand that, you’ll know exactly what you’re chasing the next time you pick up your camera.

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Quote of the Day

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

— Bruce Lee

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Kenya Big Cat Safari Openings

We now have just two spots left on our September 2–9 Kenya Big Cat Safari. We'll be staying at our very own Kapoto Camp in the heart of the Masai Mara, spending our days searching for lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants, and so much more. There's something truly magical about the Mara: the incredible wildlife, the golden light, the endless plains, and the amazing people who make this place so special. If you've ever dreamed of experiencing Africa's iconic big cats in the wild, I'd love to have you join us. Please send me a message if you're interested.

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Thank you for being part of The Wildlife Collective. Together, we are helping build a deeper connection between people and the natural world while supporting the conservation of wildlife and wild places. Stay tuned for more stories from the field, conservation news, photography tips, and unforgettable wildlife encounters from around the globe.

Until next time, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep falling in love with the wild.

Zac Mills​
​The Wildlife Collective