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:Dead tree? Winter tree? No idea. What I saw was a trillion tiny white branches. What I don't like in the picture:I don't always see in b/w, but this one I did. What I learned:It's not that I have some mental trick that allows me to manipulate how I interpret a scene, it's far simpler than that. I have my camera's viewfinder/LCD screen default to showing a b/w rendition when I look through the camera. If I want to see in color, I have a custom one-button press I can use to swap the view from b/w to color. In this case, the version at left is what I saw in the viewfinder and knew that was the shot. If I had only seen the color version above in the viewfinder, I'm not sure I would have visualized what it could be in a b/w rendition. 2nd Chances: What I might try nextI might need to fuss a big with the transition halo where the sky meets the landscape horizon. The halo is a distraction that implies lazy processing. |
