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:I made this photograph during a walk on a snowy, bitterly cold day, the biting wind my only companion. What I don't like in the picture:At the time, I was reading Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy in which the main character, a very stubborn man, gets lost in a bitterly cold winter storm. I distinctly remember wanting this photograph to communicate what I was reading. It didn't, so I filed it away as a failure. What I learned:But here is the odd thing about it — now that I look at this image some 17 years after its capture, I now think it does a pretty good job of making me feel the cold. It doesn't tell the story of Vasily Andreyevich, but how could it? This is a photograph, not literature. I unfairly judged this photograph a failure because I expected too much from the medium itself. 2nd Chances: What I might try nextAllow our thoughts and feelings to motivate our photography, but don't expect our photography to animate our thoughts. |
