I've been shooting for a while now and I do think my photos get better. Though some of this is due to increased artistic expertise, there also are some concrete abilities I didn't use to have. Sometimes I just bought a new lens, enabling tack-sharp images, shallow depth of field or macro photography. Other times I embraced raw photography and Darktable to fix my exposure or correct a blown-out sky. And again other times I ditched the automatic ISO and exposure time for manual exposure. Those are all very technical abilities. But not everything is technical in photography, right?

At some point I thought the best photographer could create an amazing photo in whatever situation she finds herself in. I thought enough skill could negate adverse conditions. But since then I've realized that, of course, the location, weather, time of day and day of year does make a huge impact. For example, I started to carry my heavy camera around more often. I also travel more; the Karlatornet doesn't stand in Germany, I have to go to Sweden to photograph it. My photography simply isn't of the kind you do in your attic.
Oh and the sky. The sky makes such a difference! Realizing that getting up early or staying up late to catch golden hour is part of photography changed a world to me. Consequently, I started getting really annoyed at the weather for being sunny on weekdays and cloudy on the weekend. I'm an amateur photographer after all.

Analogue photography also had it's impact on me. When you only have 36 pictures you'd better make them count! There are so many situations in which I know there's a picture to take but I lack the abilities or simply came at the wrong time. But I can feel it's presence, I can experience it and let it pass. That's why I love optical viewfinders; they let me block out the entire world but the frame forever. Then I can imagine the image I would've liked to take but can't.
The other day, for example, light flooded our attic (talking about that attic). So I went up there, photographing. I spent half an hour crawling among the spider-webby boxes taking in the sunlight but not a single picture. It simply didn't work out; I couldn't capture what I wanted to capture. I think this is photography, too.
Every time I take a picture or fail at it I'm on the lookout for these abilities that I've acquired or am striving towards. Thinking of discrete abilities, single steps to take, makes photography so much more approachable, so much less illusive. It isn't just a matter of "Other people get it, you don't." That really motivates me to have fun with this hobby and get better at it. And I'm certain I'll find a lot more to photography in the years to come.