UM, THANKS, I GUESS

By MICHAEL PERKINS

PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO ARE EVEN MINIMALLY HONEST WITH THEMSELVES learn early on how to own their mistakes, to admit that sadly, such-and-such a picture just did not work out. Even if they are slow in learning this, they will no doubt be forced to answer the question “what happened here?” from other photographers. This acts as a double-strength multiplier for humility. Good photos speak softly in praise of their creators. Bad photos wear loud colors and walk around with a bulls-eye on their behinds.

The one chance a shooter has to pass off a poor shot is if the result, however comprised in his own estimation, actually manages to “speak” to someone else. All it takes to break us out of a sell-pitying sulk is for someone, anyone to ask, “oh, how did you do that?”, allowing us to glibly remark along the lines of “oh, you see what I was up to, did you?” or “yes, that’s what I was going for all along..” In such cases, it’s forgivable to just take the win, rather than answer the viewer with “are you nuts? This pictures stinks!”

Sunrise Over Bard Lake, Simi Valley, near Thousand Oak, California, 2/3/25

I recently had positive reaction to such a shot, a picture that I had already rejected as close, but no cigar, a landscape that you see here. It was the result of an early dawn enveloped in bright hazy glare combined with a superzoom, needed for the bird walk I was starting, but which, due to its tiny sensor, was guaranteed to render details mushier the farther in I cranked on my subject. And so you see a very soft, muted rendering of all the tones, resolving into a look that photogs have come to term “painterly”, which is French for “not as sharp as I’d hoped for”. Still, several people had given me oohs and aahs on it, so it was very tough to tell them they didn’t know what they were talking about. The scene is, after all, very dreamy, and might still have been on the mushy side even with a more sophisticated camera. The aggravating thing for me is when a picture works for everybody else but me. Makes me wonder how many art museums are brimful of works their creators regard as flawed. I’m sure the math on such a study would be surprising.

In the meantime, thanks, I reply, adding, as a post script, you oughta see what happens when I actually know what I’m doing. The P.S., of course, is silent. And it damned well is going to stay that way.