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.
Celebrating our 1,000th post in this series!Link to post #1 back in June of 2020 |
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Original digital capture
Pictures Come from Pictures WeekThis week will see the 1,000th post in this series, so it seems like a good time to scan back — way back — to my beginnings. Each day I'll look at a contact sheet (above) from my film archives and compare it to a more recent image of the same visual idea. There is nothing new under the sun, or as Carl Chiarenza says, "Pictures come from pictures." The contact sheets are all from the mid-1980s or 90s. The revisited images at left are all digital images after 2005. The Backstory:The foamy water in the above was photographed in 1995 near Tensleep, Wyoming. I like the foam, but the pattern that should have formed the composition was not cooperative. I shot it anyway, but no amount of cropping was able to resolve the foam into an interesting graphic. On November 3, 2018 I spend the day photographing at the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon. The day was done and I had packed away my camera. On the way out, next to the parking lot, was this small pond and the foam pattern I had wanted 23 years earlier. Out came the camera and a minute or two later I had the image I had been earlier denied. Is it cliché to say that we should never give up, but practice patience as best we can? |
