The image selected from many attempts can make ease look more immediate than it was.

One kept picture out of forty tells a very confident story. What reaches other people is the frame where the light worked and everyone was looking, while the thirty-nine awkward ones vanish leaving no trace of the effort. Selection is invisible, which is exactly why results look effortless. You end up comparing your process with somebody else’s edit.

When something looks easy, assume the attempts you cannot see. When you show your own work, mention the number of tries now and then. It costs nothing and makes the standard other people measure themselves by a fairer one.