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:Fall in Acadia National Park. Wow. What I don't like in the picture:Sometimes, I look at my images in Lightroom and have no idea what I was thinking at the time I pressed the shutter button. Was I taking a picture of the rock? I don't think so. Ugh. What I learned:Look at the bits and pieces. Sometimes I've found that I was just working too quickly to be able to refine the composition as I should have. The more I looked at the above, the more I realized that there was a part of the image I liked a lot. Pretty severe cropping and I found the image that was buried in the unnecessary parts. I guess this is a reason to consider a high megapixel camera that allows this type of severe cropping. Just to finish the point, the above is the full 5184 x 3888 image from my 20 megapixel micro 4/3 camera. The crop at left is still 3659 x 2677 pixels, enough for a 9x12" print at my normal 300 dpi for printing. I almost never crop this much, but if I have to, I can. |
