After you've mastered your craft, your art and have the necessary skills, the next step should be: What am I trying to say? In my opinion, this is the measure of an artist and can be applied to any artistic discipline. If I'm really successful, when viewing my images, you'll feel what I wanted you to feel. At the very least, you should feel something: joy, excitement, interest, fear or even disgust. If there's no response, then I haven't accomplished what I set out to do. Even if I'm shooting for my own enjoyment, my goal is to still convey a message or a feeling; the very essence that drew me to want to take or make the image in the first place. When I do commercial photography, I'm paid to get the client's point across, again this is the sole point of taking the image. Shooting my personal work allows me to get my "message" out there and although this may sometimes seem like an egotistic pursuit, it's really the only reason to "cha