One of the bad photography habits I've gotten myself into over the last few years is 'whatifid-ism'. Basically the habit of looking back on a photograph, a photograph that I'd once been really happy with, and had loads of great memories of creating, and tearing it apart as I now have new found knowledge or a different way of doing things.
Self-critique is a good thing to do in landscape photography, but it can easily lead into a thought process of 'that's no longer good enough'.
This photograph of one of the waterfalls at Tarn Hows in the Lake District National Park is a great example of this.
At the time, and in the years since, I’ve been really pleased with this photograph. And it would seem that other people enjoy it too, a few prints have been made and sold and it’s garnered social media likes and loves. But there’s no doubt that there are things I could have done differently on location…..some ‘whatifId-isms’:
'What if I'd' tried a wider lens?
'What if I'd' closed down the aperture to get more clarity on the bottom right?
'What if I'd' spent a little longer searching for a slightly different angle?
‘What if I’d’ given over a little more room to the flow on the left?
Asking questions like these, after the emotion of the day and attachment to the shot has passed, is a great way to learn and improve on your photography. Analysing the shot, mulling over the composition, thinking about other ways you could have done it, are all vital tools in the journey of learning that we undertake through our photographic endeavours.
But asking these questions and finding the flaws within an image doesn't make it a bad shot. One of the biggest lessons in photography is that art is rarely ever (if ever!) perfect. Perfection is not something that you can control anyway. Perfection depends on the photographs relationship with the viewer, not with the artist. Post about a photograph that you think reaches perfection on the internet, you’ll soon find someone willing to tell you that perfection it is not!
But it is the strive for perfection (and this is the goal that we will never reach) that keeps many photographers going. But it is an ongoing push and pull between what is in our heads and our final creation.
So, yes, this shot has some flaws. But it is the shot that I created in that moment. A brief fleeting moment that can never be repeated. So,
'what if I'd' not taken it?
‘What if I’d’ missed that speckled light because I was busy swapping lenses or searching for a better angle?
'What if I'd' closed down the aperture and lost texture in the water?
Then it wouldn't be this photograph. And I like this photograph. And if I'd never taken it, then I wouldn't have been able to ask those questions anyway.
Learning is so worthwhile, yearning is not.
Dave, April 23