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:Rock wall patterns in Capitol Reef, Utah. What I don't like in the picture:The above version was included in my project, Hokusai in the Rocks. For that project I used a deep warm-tone that leans to the red side of the spectrum. What I learned:Recently, I started working on a new project of abstracts and this image fit nicely. This time, it is a neutral gray tone with a bit more contrast. This demonstrates one idea I never heard when I was a young photographer — that an image could be used in more that one rendition in different projects. Instead, we were taught to search for the one "best" rendition of a negative and that was it. I no longer think that is valid. In fact, I find many of my image will fit into more than one project, often with different processing or cropping appropriate for each project. |
