Asking newly qualified teachers (NQTs) to provide images of their "best teaching", and encouraging subsequent reflection on these images, has the potential to enhance their understanding of themselves as teachers as they explore their often unconsciously held assumptions about students and classrooms. This paper reports aspects of a study of 100 New Zealand secondary NQTs as they constructed and explained images of themselves when "teaching at their best" at three points over the first 18 months of full-time teaching. The article shows how these images of "best teaching" may represent the NQTs' pedagogical creed, and explores the nature of relationships and ways of working with students described within this developing pedagogy. It concludes by indicating implications from this study for teacher education pedagogies and programmes. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)