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:Rocks and waves of water are different things, right? What I don't like in the picture:I think the hardest thing to do in photography is to divorce ourselves from what we see with our eyes. The image above is perfectly fine, but thoroughly factual. A time, a place, a moment. But perfectly emotionless. What I learned:The processed image at left is my emotional response to the above. It's not in the least accurate, except that it accurately expresses my response to the scene. Do you connect with my response-based processing? Maybe not, but first and foremost, your response to my artwork is less influential than my response to the scene. That's the tricky thing about artwork: Producers make artwork to their internal vibrations with no thought about whether or not anyone else will like it. Producing work so the audience will like it is a statistical gamble that often leads to some questionable art. |
