Every Picture Is a Compromise
Lessons from the Also-rans
Most photography websites show the photographer's very best work. Wonderful. But that's not the full story of a creative life. If we want to learn, we'd better pay attention to the images that aren't "greatest hits" and see what lessons they have to offer. Every picture is a compromise — the sum of its parts, optical, technical, visual, emotional, and even cosmic – well, maybe not cosmic, but sometimes spiritual. Success on all fronts is rare. It's ok to learn from those that are not our best.
This is a series about my also-rans, some of which I've been able to improve at bit (i.e., "best effort"), none of which I would consider my best. With each there are lessons worth sharing, so I will.
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Original digital capture
What I saw that I liked:Fog and mist are two of my favorite subjects to include in a landscape image What I don't like in the picture:Well, don't like the trees poking in from the bottom, don't like the blue color of the fog, don't like the green trees on the top 20% of the image. What I learned:I could easily become a panorama specialist. Cropping to a panorama is probably not the best way to create a pano image — stitching, I suspect, is the better strategy— but it does solve problems in quite a number of my RAW captures. Even after cropping, this image is 3,888 pixels on the long side, so I can make a print that is 13" x 6". I'm OK with that, at least far more OK with that than the uncropped image above. 2nd Chances: What I might try nextBecause this image is soft due to the fog, I wonder if I could up-res it to a larger print? Worth a try to see if I could get a 19" print out of it. |
