I see Street Photography as a way of floating downstream in a river as a mixture of currents that interact with each other ebb and flow. You get buffeted about and float from one pool of water (one interesting visual situation) to another via a stream of mediocrity that connects them. Some rivers are fast flowing while others are slow.
The "story" (so to speak) has to be contained within each image either completely within a single frame or across a series of them, or if not but they are executed with technical competence they become just another item of wall decoration.
Think what you want to produce: Is it wallpaper or is it art?
Very few seem to produce more than one piece of art per roll of film or trip out to "take photos", the rest have failings in them that relegate the attempts to the trash can of mediocrity. So what is going on?
You HAVE to be able to produce good *QUALITY* images (I was told to consider the 3 C's of: concept, content and composition) and unfortunately, so many people think the 900 frames they shoot on a DSLR are *ALL* worth keeping. Instagram pics of lunch are a prime example...
THROW THESE AWAY, THEY ARE THE *FAILURES*.
DO NOT THINK THEY ARE WORTH EXHIBITING OR SHARING.
THE LEVEL OF MEDIOCRITY IN WHAT YOU DO WILL GO WAY DOWN IF YOU FOLLOW THIS SIMPLE RULE; "QUANTITY DOES NOT EQUAL QUALITY" (ignore if you are still at the "101" class level).
When you know what you are doing, have the courage of your learning and edit out the junk more aggressively than when you were just starting.
The iPhone generation will snapshoot everything and not having any visual education will not have the language skills to be able to edit these failed images out of the canon of work they produce. Note that even though I have that education, I find it hard to do. So yes, for me it *IS* a hard thing to learn and I recognize that.
We are failing as a society where effort and the time to learn a skill like editing the failures out is so devalued that it hardly seems worth it. Have you ever wondered why those who are seen as successful artists/photographers only ever seem to show a few dozen new works each year? IT'S BECAUSE THEY THROW AWAY (MORE LIKELY JUST DON'T PRINT/SHOW) THE FAILURES.
An image that is 99% is not as good as one that is 100%. Only show those works that reach that 100% standard; nobody will see you are producing anything less than great work...
GET IT NOW?