Failing: To Not Give Up
Post-Script: So, what precipitated this little creative pep-talk, and how does the top photo relate? Simple: I failed, this week, at multiple attempts at photographic creativity, both instances technical in nature rather than some failure of artistic vision (but which I've managed in the past to achieve spectacular failure). In the first instance, I had ran some old, outdated slide film through my Russian rangefinder pinhole camera, then had cross-processed at the local lab, only to find the whole roll a total loss, not one image was salvageable. In the second instance, I had attempted another paper negative self-portrait under indirect daylight, only to find the image grossly under-exposed and out of focus. But at least I know I'm merely mortal.
So, what about that top image? Yesterday, after exposing that roll of slide film, I stopped by my favorite coffee shop, Winnings, and snapped this image with my Fujifilm X10, a quick, sideways snap of whoever was seated to my right. After the spectacular technical failures from yesterday, I opened the folder of X10 images in my raw development software and, lo and behold, this image was waiting for me. So don't ever give up, something's bound to come together if you keep plugging away.
Typecast via Hermes Rocket.
posted by Joe V at 8:48 PM
3 Comments:
Thank you for this beautifully written account of what it means to succeed and fail. The photograph is something I could look at all day.
I have to say, as a graphic designer who often has a "get-creative-and-quick" gun to his temple and looks out with desperation over that endless white desert of an A4 sheet of copier paper, those other 'creative pursuits' often - nearly always - come to the rescue. When I stop trying to be clever, that's when I reach a solution.
...great, great photo by the way. Gold dust.
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