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:They may be the ultimate cliché in photography, but I like photographing spider webs. What I don't like in the picture:The trick, I believe, with spider webs is to find a non-standard emotional response. The classic orb spider web response is, "How geometric, but trite." The one above is probably, "Yuck, what a mess." What I learned:It's possible to find a different emotion, however. That said, emotions can vary so much from person to person, we never know if our image will portray our chosed emotion. The one at left, to me, is creepy — a sort of cross between Aliens and The Mummy. To me, it's less about spiders than it is about something emerging — that I hope I don't meet up with. |
