Brooks Jensen Arts - Every Picture Is a Compromise

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Every Picture is a Compromise
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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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Sometimes, Just Fix the Obvious

In an ideal world, the image captured in the camera would be perfect and need no processing whatsoever. We do not live in an ideal world. Sometimes, the first step is to fix the obvious.

What I saw that I liked:

Love the shape of the window. Love the shape of the fence slats and how they mirror the window.

What I don't like in the picture:

Why, oh why, did I not crank up the tripod a bit more to separate the fence from the window?

What I learned:

I did fix the unfortunate merge after a few hours of microscopic cloning tool work in Photoshop. Lots easier to get it right in the field and save all that work in processing. Yes, almost anything can be fixed in Photoshop, but it's almost always easier to just get it right in the first place.