Waiting

     We're all waiting.  It's a new year. (relatively)  South of the border, there's a new president in the white house. Vaccines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus have been approved and, albeit with some glitches, are being rolled out and administered. But still, all of us are in some form of lockdown and we're all waiting.                                                                                   

    But maybe it's not so bad. Maybe what we've all needed is  a time out. I'm still in the process of backing up files from my old laptop. In doing so, I've probably deleted more files than I've saved. Do I really need twenty photos of the same sunset? Pick the best one of the group and move on. Am I ever going to use that photo of the flower which is not quite right? Hey, it's a pretty good shot. But by my standards, ''Pretty ain't good enough!''  I mean,  the subject was beautiful but did I do a really good job of capturing its essence? I know that I could probably spend some time in Photoshop or some other post processing program trying to enhance it enough to save it. But to what end? For a handful of ''likes'' on social media? Does a heavily doctored picture really represent who I am or who I aspire to be as a creator of visual images? .........Delete! 

     This exercise of going through old photos has been something of a revelation to me, both as a photographer and as a human being. What is the criteria for saving an image from the past?  Though photography is one of the most immediate forms of human creativity, every picture is an image of the past as soon as the shutter closes and the picture is taken. To my mind, for a photograph to be successful, it has to have historical significance or  have a timeless quality to it.

     Regarding historical significance, almost all pictures of family and friends are saved. Also saved are pictures of community events, images of streetscapes whether local or taken on my travels. Even if the value they possess is questionable now, they might be of interest or have some historical value in the future.

    In regards to the timeless quality, I'm entering an area where the criteria is more subjective. Does the image elicit an emotional response?  Will  it peak the interest of the viewer? In regard to the first two questions is a third one. Does it do it well? Often it's that last question which keeps my cursor hovering over the delete button.                                                                                 

    That immediacy of photography is the craft's greatest strength and also its greatest weakness. In going through the hard drive of my old laptop, the question that keeps coming to mind is ''Why did I take so many shots of such a boring subject?'' The truth of the matter is that the subject wasn't boring. It was  my  approach and technique (or lack thereof) that rendered a boring image. If it is true that  American street photographer Garry Winogrand was right. ''Everything is photographable.''  The better question I should be asking is ''Why did I fail to capture the essence of my subject?'' or ''What could I have done to make the image better?''  Better yet, I should be asking that question while still in the field with the subject right in front of me. It would save me the process of examining and deleting twenty expendable images later.

     So the upshot of this exercise is this. I've got to stop being so lazy when it comes to the editing process. Otherwise my collection of photos becomes just a clutter of lacklustre images with, hopefully, a few gems hidden in the mix. I put out a post a while ago about shooting with intent. https://refractivereasoning.blogspot.com/2019/06/shooting-with-intent.html  I need to start doing that more in my own work, both while out shooting and in the editing process. As New Year's resolutions go, at least photographically, that's a pretty good one.. 

    To quote the great Imogen Cunningham, ''Which of my photographs is my favourite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow.''

            ...more later

    

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