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:A forest of thistles with nature's stochastic patterns. What I don't like in the picture:In the above, the foreground is in focus but the mid and background are not. What I learned:I decided to try a focus bracketing technique I've been playing around with of late with some success. I set the camera to make a series of exposures with a focus step between capture #1 and capture #7. I then aligned and blended these images into a focus stack in Photoshop. Most of the time, this works well, but in this example the focus blend created artifacts that ruin the image. See the close-up detail in the blow up below at left. Ugh. Sometimes, a focus stack just doesn't work. 2nd Chances: What I might try nextI guess the strategy should be to always capture a straight image at f/16 or f/22 as a backup to a focus bracket image — just in case the focus bracket doesn't blend like you hope. |
