Sometimes an Image Just Doesn't Work Out

There are times when one (read, “I”) goes out photographing, arrives at a location, and an image just screams out to be made.  The location, weather, play of light and time of day of those moments come together and it seems like all one has to do is point the camera, make sure the image is properly focused, that the exposure is correct, and that your batteries are charged.  Once you press the shutter, you know you have an incredible image.  

Although rare, it happens.  More frequently, you need to work a bit before you know that you’ve made an incredible image.  Again, that’s totally understandable.  What are the odds that you’re going to find the right tripod location, right height, or right focal length lens to use on your first try at an image?  You get better with experience (and in taking your time to consider these things before you set up the camera), but I would have way fewer good images if I’d assumed that I’d made the best image possible of a subject with the first exposure and had walked away.  

Still, once you’ve worked an image, you will often know when you have a good one.  It’s a lot easier now than bit used to be.  It’s one of the advantages of digital over film.  One gets a pretty good idea, although not perfect, of the image you’ve recorded by examining it on the LCD back on the camera.  Back in the day, you’d make exposures and have to feel confident that you’ve captured it despite having to get the film developed some time later.  Still, there were plenty of times back then when I drove home knowing I had a lovely image.  

And there are times, like the Fissure images discussed a few posts ago, where you work an image, knowing that something is there, but unsure whether you’ve managed to embody the image with that feeling that struck you so much you had to make it.  Often, even if you don’t get it just right, there is something to the images that is compelling and in the end, you feel like the effort was worth while.

Then there are the images where, you think that an image is there, but try as you may it does not work out.  You struggle and work the image and . . . nothing.  You see something, but you just can not get it on film (I guess today you’d say “sensor” or “memory card” . . .  I’ll stick with film).  There is a disconnect between what you see visually in three dimensions and and what you wind up with on the LCD in two dimensions, and you know it right then and there as you’re making it.  And you just can’t figure out a way to make it work.  Sure, you make the image anyway (face it, pixels are free), but what you knew out in the field is all too often confirmed back home on your monitor - the image just doesn’t work.

I had one of those images on our trip earlier this year to the Painted Hills (ok, I had several of them but this post is about only one of them).  When we got home, I looked at the image and my feelings out in the field were right - the image didn’t cut it.  Now, while I don’t mind including images (usually from my iPhone) that show the places we’ve gone to, when it comes to photographic work, I don’t like showing images that don’t move me in some way.  So this image was definitely never going to appear on the blog until . . . 

The other day, Ann asked me a question about a photograph she was working on.  I walked over to her and realized it was a photograph of me photographing.  I immediately knew which image I was making at the time and instantly felt a queasiness.  I forget now what Ann’s question was; I can only remember that I quite vividly remembered how frustrated I was at the time.  I also knew the image just didn’t cut it and this was not going to be a shooting the shooter pairing of images.  

After responding to Ann’s question, I realized that she had made quite a few images of me at that time, and I asked her to scroll through them.  From the images, you could see me thinking about my image, working on the composition, and then becoming quite frustrated.  In other words, the perfect content for a blog post.  So think of this post as images of a photographer working.  Working at a failed image, but working nonetheless.

So here’s the image I ultimately made and, for way too many reasons, just did not work out. 

And here are the images of me transitioning from the excitement and focus of making an image to . . . well, being pretty damn frustrated.

(My apologies for the quality of the crops.  Ann photographed me as part of a much larger landscape, as you can see from this image, and the quality is just fine.  But once you blow something up too much . . . quality suffers.  The point here is the fool of a subject, and Ann captured that without a doubt.) 

Ann started photographing me after I’d started working with the image.  At this point, I was continuing to explore what I thought I was seeing and comparing it with the result I had gotten with the lens I had on my camera.    

I decided that I needed to frame the image a bit tighter, so I changed the lens on my camera.

Lens changed, I reframed things a bit.

However, you can tell that I’m still not happy with the results.  One of my problems was, in part, the location of the focus point given that the image has much more depth than it appears on the surface.

Again, I move my head back and forth, looking at the subject, then the image on the screen, trying to resolve the two. 

And then zooming into the captured image to check out the focusing. 

I then return to the overall image trying to figure out why it’s not working.

And it becomes apparent that frustration is settling in as I try to figure out what needs to be done.

At times it feels like you’re trying to cajole an image to materialize and it just won’t.

So you get back into it, making ever so slight adjustments in an effort to make the pieces come together. 

By that point, I realized I had to make the framing even tighter, so you can see that I moved the tripod even closer in the image below.  And, once again, I’m comparing what I think I’m seeing with the image on the camera’s rear LDC, the anxiety from the difference clearly showing on my face.

The anxiousness of reframing the image to try and make it work continues to show itself by the wrinkles along my eye.

By this point, the end is near.  You can tell I’m struggling and just not happy with the results.  Questions abound - Lower? Higher? Closer? Backwards?  What do I need to do to make it happen.

Finally, I step backwards to look at the image on the LCD screen.  I think you can see a look of resignation on my face.  The knowledge that, try as I may, the image just is not going to work out the way I see it. 

Ann stopped photographing at this point and I couldn’t tell you if I stayed a bit longer and tried a few more things or not.  I can say that, of the multiple different framings I made with the camera that you can see above, only one satisfied me enough to press the shutter.  So I only have one image (multiple copies of it of course) from this whole sequence of images.  It really was one of those times where I felt there was a huge disconnect between what I was seeing and what the camera saw.   

Maybe next time Ann will be nice enough to do this with an image that really excites me and that is worth showing!