A Few Remarks on Editing

I've written about this before, certainly.

But it crops up again and again. The way I generally shoot is to find something and then work it—walking around, trying different compositions, waiting for elements to change or for something to happen. I'm just looking for the one good shot. I don't care about all the rest; they're just process. When I ingest to the computer I'll have anywhere from three to 40 exposures of each "motif," all basically in search of that one good shot. Most of the time—not all of the time—the last shot, or one near the end, will be the best one. That's because as I shoot I understand the picture better. A lot of my near misses make me think to myself, "should have worked that one harder."

I think it's very lazy when people show multiple tries at one photograph. It's the photographer's duty to pick one. It's your picture; you decide which exposure is best. Don't expect the viewer to do it.

But that doesn't mean it's always easy. I occasionally have two pictures that work for me and have trouble deciding between them. Take this for example:

Version 1

Version 2

Version 1 was one of the first ones I shot at that spot. It's handsome, but it's also old-fashioned; it could be a Farm Security Administration photograph. The second one is a little quirkier, more off-balance, which I like. Then again, I have a tendency to resist my classicist impulses, which I believe are too strong. So I go back and forth. I don't really know which one is better.

Sometimes, of course, not being able to decide means that both of them aren't quite keepers. It's very tempting to think you got something just because you got it. You have to be awake to the fact that sometimes you just didn't bag the game.

The solution
The solution for me is usually time. If I continue looking at variants of a picture for a few days, what usually happens is that my mind sorts it out. I'll start liking one better and the other one less.

It hasn't happened yet with these two. I hope it will. I'm not putting both of them on Flickr; it's my responsibility to decide.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Rod S.: "My choice is clear; it's number one. It's the stronger photograph, by far. It accentuates the power pole and makes me look up at the top of the frame, thereby strengthening the sense of tallness that, surely, was at least a large part of the visual pull for the photograph. The second shot just doesn't do any of that. It isn't strong enough to be interesting. Shooting 4x5, I had to learn to do that process you describe 'by eye' before making an exposure."

Ben: "I like #2 better. My feeling is that #1 is about the telephone pole, while #2 is a balance between road and sky. For me the pole in #1 interrupts the dynamism of the clouds. Plus the shadow of the pole in #2 is very nice."

robert e: "I see your dilemma. In an abstract sense, version 1 is the better composition, but it doesn't really say anything. The second version, on the other hand, tells a story—of wilderness (the tree and sky), settlement (the house), cultivation (the crops) and development (the road), and it's an ongoing story relevant to the setting. The composition may be unorthodox—and less strong per se—but it serves the narrative, making it the stronger picture overall. Normally, I'm biased toward formalism and aesthetics, but in this case it seems I prefer the storytelling.

"I think that's the biggest challenge in photography—whatever our intention, every photo has both form and content, and their interaction (or lack thereof) can make or break the picture."

Trygve Strömberg: "I prefer the first one. It is tranquil and relaxing. Just sit down, chew on a straw and watch the clouds sail by. The second one is more dynamic and restless, the leading lines forcing me forward to the house in the distance."

xf mj: "Your two frames here remind me of several side-of-road moments, where the light is amazing, but I can’t quite access the scene to get The One. I might really want a ladder and am feeling a real urge to tresspass, and so I just snap a few, shrug, and drive on. I’m also very much reminded of once wearing a cast and having a strong itch under it that I couldn’t quite scratch. Thanks, Mike!"

Comments

[James Bullard]

IMO You nailed it with version 1.

[Chris C]

#2 for me, although I’m just looking at small versions on a phone screen and might be missing something in the details. Just think it has more depth.

[jim]

Funny, for me its usually the first! Maybe because having started with film, there was a cost to each exposure. For what i thought was going to be a "really good" image or really challenging exposure I might have shot two, if it was a static shot. With digital i often, but not always, wind up with a lot of redundant images. My problem is- I cant bring myself to delete ANY of them! Thats my editing problem!

[Vince]

In this particular case, I would say it depends on where you want eyes to go. In the first one, my eyes go to the clouds; in the second, to the road and the field. Because of that, I prefer the first one, because I think the clouds are more interesting.

[Peter, in Boulder]

I’m resisting offering my opinion between the two, Mike, to not influence your decision. But it might be interesting to post both again, with a poll, after you have decided.

[grigoris]

i think that a square crop of the second one (keeping just the right side) is more balanced but not so classic. i dont know how to post it here

[J]

Our photographic tastes are worlds apart so my solution in this case would be neither. I wouldn't even bother to stop for this scene. While the clouds have potential, the general scenery is just meh. But then again, while I've enjoyed your writing for over 20 years, and I totally agree on the editing remarks, I rarely enjoy your photos. As blunt as that may be.

[Bear.]

For me it’s usually the first or second shot I end up picking- closest to what I saw. After that, I often overwork the composition.

[Tom Burke]

One advantage of digital photography, for an amateur snap-shooter such as me, has been that it has afforded the opportunity to edit. How many times in the past did I take just one shot of a location - one possible composition - out of all the myriad possibilities, because the cost of each frame of film was so expensive? (And expensive in different ways - in money for Kodachrome or E6, in time for self-developed & printed b&w.) So when the prints or slides were delivered, I'd just put up with what I'd got. Discarding the single image - and thus not having one at all from the location - was not conceivable (unless the result was truly horrible).

I would also say that I've found shooting with the phone helpful for this initial sift, simply because the screen on my smartphone is bigger and better colour calibrated than the screen on any digital camera I've had. So I do an initial cull 'in phone'. The next stage will be to look at them on the iPad. The larger screen size makes it both easier to make compositional decisions,, and to spot small issues, e.g. focus, that weren't clear on the phone, and again some will go.

The final step is to export the remaining images as .dng files from Apple Photos and import them into Lightroom, where final decisions as to keepers will be taken and other editing undertaken. But I have to admit that I'm guilty of sometimes keeping two or three similar compositions because I haven't chosen between them, and I ought to address that.

[Marc]

It might be merely that I notice it when it happens, but I feel like when I walk around a shot, testing it all out, I end up picking my first shot, the one that triggered my shutter urge. I like to think that this is a message to trust my emotional instinct over my intellectualising. To get slightly personal, the latter has been for me a gift relied upon to the deficit of emotional maturity and (self-)compassion, so to see a benefit of that trust, of not overthinking things, not scaffolding everything with a “logical” mindset… yeah. But still, it might just be me noticing it because of the hindsight view of an effort that could have been foreshortened. “It’s all a rich tapestry.” (A Simpsons reference there, for those still playing along)

[Christopher Perez]

I see Version 2 as being on some levels more "dynamic". The dark band of corn that starts on the left forms a line that goes to a point common with road and the transmission lines. It's the "strength" of the band that attracts me. The "clincher" is the shadow of another utility pole in the foreground. It implies things... and yet... overall... it's a little too straight, too "correct". I really like the way the road curves in Version 1.

Sorry. I can't help you. Good luck with your decision.

[Moose]

I prefer V1, for a couple of reasons.

It may not be obvious in the sizes presented. At ~9x12 or ~11x17, the line of utility poles become a wonderful main element, as they turn with the road, then lead into the distance.

The problem with that is that the closest pole leans a lot, which clashes with the rest of the line as perspective distortion lessens toward the center.

I suspect you don't notice perspective distortion the way I do; it just jumps out at me. And is present in many of the photos you show.

I now know not to mess with your photos in public. I may say, however, that it's a very handsome photo at larger sizes — with straight poles.

V2, in addition to a different angle, adds a lot of, to me, extraneous material on the sides.

--------------
Curiosity: Did the FSA photographers correct perspective distortion in the darkroom, keep their cameras level, or just let it be? A brief scan on the web shows that they were mostly closer in, focusing on people. The few with such verticals are pretty straight.

[Actually, I did correct perspective distortion (ACR > Geometry > Vertical) in v.1. However, I always leave some in. Full correction always looks too fussy to me, and I think such distortion is a characteristic of camera vision that we are used to seeing and expect to see. But, as you often point out, YMMV! We all use our own judgement as to what looks best to us. --Mike]

[Martino]

At the risk of going meta, for me it's usually the other way round: the early shots tend to better, but *sometimes it's the later ones which causes me to keep shooting a lot too.

[Robert Roaldi]

Mea culpa.

[Joe]

Yes! When I taught photography, I told my students to bracket everything -- not just the exposure, but the framing, the depth of field, camera orientation, distance from subject, etc. They were learning, and that kind of working the subject was eye opening.

[aaron c greenman]

The second time in as many days that I read a pretty good pun that the writer may not (or may) have realized they were using.... your "crops up all the time" works in terms of the cropping/editing meaning but also because your image examples are partially of a cornfield.

Yesterday it was the writer of the NYTimes Magazine Barbie article saying on The Daily that the Barbie doll "comes with a lot of baggage."

Have a good week!

ACG

[Frank Gorga]

Fully agree. About both the process, the need to choose, and the solution.

Mulling over almost anything in photography generally leads a better result.

Time. A resource severely lacking in this insta-face-twit world we currently inhabit.

[Tony McLean]

I think that your V2 has more interesting clouds and the benefit of the shadow of the utility pole which provides interest to the foreground.

Those leading lines bring me to the focal point which is the beautiful and delicate scalloped clouds just above the horizon. The gable peak of the distant building points skywards to those clouds too.
I also like the smaller white building on the right edge of the frame.

OMG! I'm sorry if I sound like a camera club judge.

[Mark]

For me, sometimes a photo’s positives and negatives emerge through the process of making a work print. Often I’ll decide against making a final print after examining a dry work print outside of the dark room, in good light. The work print either has problems I can fix, or has problems beyond my meager darkroom skills. Also, I’m a sucker for clouds, so I like both versions.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Mike: when I’m faced with such choices I nearly always back away from the image set for a period of time…sometimes weeks, sometimes years. That de-couples my emotional memory of actually taking the images and allows me a clearer vision to answer the fundamental question, “What am I trying to say here?”

Point of view for such static scenes determines the message. In your case here, 1 is about rhythm and scene, where 2 is about traveling. What are you trying to say?

[Doug Anderson]

In V1 both the nearest pole and the one on the right are closer to the edge of the frame than I would put them. In particular, at first glance on my laptop screen I thought the nearest pole actually ran out of the frame. To me, V1 looks like a quick shot to simply document the subject while V2 looks like a more considered later shot with more thought given to the composition.

[Bill Polkinhorn]

Anxious to hear who your Colorado printer is. The few comments you have made about him (or her?) so far - have piqued my interest. I have some work that I need printed.

[Bill Polkinhorn]

Incidentally - I like #2 better. #1 looks like the components are falling (a little too much) into the lower right hand corner.

[Peter Komar]

I prefer version two based upon many things. I like the way the bushes, trees, foliage start at the lower left hand corner. I also like the shadow of a telephone pole in the lower portion of the image, for me the version 2 is a much better image visually. Version 1 just doesn’t sing as well as version 2, in ver 1 the last telephone pole on the right is too close to the edge of the image, for me it’s a bit distracting, my eyes keep wandering to that portion of the image. Just my 2 cents worth.

[hugh crawford]

Obviously it’s a diptych, version two on the left version one on the right.

[robert e]

Often for me it's one of the first or last frames of the series of attempts that's strongest, and sometimes it's both. The former might have some of the energy of fresh insight and urgency, and the latter the refinement (I like to think), but in some cases it's because I simply hung around long enough for a lucky change of light or mise en scene to make the picture better, and sometimes it's because I tried a wacky idea after I got what I thought I wanted.

[David Drake]

The first shot is nice but a little too conservative for my liking. I like images to have something in them which makes the viewer a little bit uncomfortable and keeps them coming back. Something in the composition or subject matter which is different or unusual , even mysterious. This can be subtle.
I think the second one would have been good as a vertical. The pole and shadow do it for me. There is a nice relationship between the foreground pole on the left , the shadow and the closest pole on the right. It’s this ‘triangular’ relationship which works for me. Makes me think of Lee Freidlander.

[Hank]

I'll take V1 mostly because of the way the power poles and lines frame the clouds.

[robert e]

P.S. I forgot the poles (!) in my inventory of story elements, but they would of course go with the "development" bit. Perhaps the core visual story in v2 is in the verticals--crops, poles, road and tree, the human interventions overwhelming the diminished trees, the house at the center of it all like a spider in its web, or a conductor. I enjoy the tree defiantly claiming the right edge, and the clouds echoing it like a counter-motif. Nature isn't finished yet.

[KeithB]

"But it crops up again and again."
Hah! I see what you did there!

[Richard Parkin]

The second, cropped vertically with the wires coming in at top left would be my first thought. I like the relationship between the shadow and the cross tree on the first pole.

[Keith B.]

Both shots have big empty areas on the left side. If these were the best compositions available at that location/time, then there wasn't a photograph at that location/time. I'm a past master of roads + power pole shots that ultimately aren't good enough to show!

[Mitch Krupp]

I prefer the second one. It seems to be much more expressive and elicits an emotional response. The first seems a bit emotionally flat and noncommittal. It always amazes me how changing the composition so little can have such a large effect.

[Ross A]

V1 for me. Spatially more interesting. I like the diagonal treatment of the road to its vanishing point. Sure, that has been done, but that isn’t a reason for criticism.

V2 is too much foreground, and the road is just kind of “there”.

If you want to split hairs, I do like the clouds in 2 slightly better, especially the lower part just above the house. There is detail and contrast there that 1 doesn’t have as well.

[Peter Conway]

I agree that when there are different compositions of the same subject, it's on the photographer to choose the one to present. You don't just dump a series of nearly-the-same compositions into the mix.

Having said that, however, there have been a small number of photographs – 3 so far – where I've surprisingly struggled to say which composition is "the one." Even with the passage of months or years.

For these situations I've implemented an "alternative view" capability on my website. I still choose one composition to present, but when that image is opened there is an alt link at the bottom which can be used to see other compositions. Some examples:

• Reclamation I


• Reclamation II


• Defile

It's certainly possible for more than one composition of a given subject to work. We don't expect a single photograph of a person to be "the one," and the comments to your post clearly show that many people prefer version 1, while many others prefer version 2. In cases like that, I think letting the photographer pick "the one," but also have the option to make "the other one" available, makes perfect sense.

[darlene]

I think version #2 stands out as the stronger choice between the two. The road's high left border made by the cornfield creates a sense of motion, almost as if it's about to envelop the viewer. Additionally, the giant telephone pole's shadow ahead adds to the overall effect, providing an intriguing perspective to conclude the composition. The tonality is nice as well.

[Rob Griffin]

You didn't actually asked for help with how to crop or which photo we, your loyal readers like best. However, after reading all of the comments posted so far, I just can't help myself.

In my opinion, the large half of a tree on the right side of the frame of version 2 is a problem, I would like to see a bit more of the tree, in order to see more of a tree shape. Right now the tree sort of looks like someone's finger got in the way of the lens.

I like version 1 better, but the pole on the right side of the frame feels too isolated. To my eye, cropping the right side of frame just enough to eliminate the pole makes the composition more complete.

The best thing about my and the other comments about which is better or how to make one of the other better, is that you, the photographer, gets to do what you think is best for your photo.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Often the hard decisions are when neither picture is really first-rate.

#1 shows the clouds better (some interesting areas are cut off by the wall of corn in #2), but the pole is rather too dominant (though it does balance with the distant house some).

#2 has the nice roadside scrub and the wall of corn, and the shadow of the pole. But maybe too much of the right side of the picture isn't really doing anything. And the clouds aren't quite as good as in #1.

[Leonard Salem]

For me #1 is mainly a photo "of" telephone poles, road, sky, lonely house) while #2 is more "about" the connection (need, inevitability) of a lonely house with the rest of the world. The same compositional elements are used in each but the "about" point is made in #2 with far greater clarity.
I prefer photos about something to photos of something.

[Jnny]

I think you should Photoshop the poles from version 1 into version 2, that would be the modern solution.

But seriously, I like 1 for the power of the pole.

[David Comdico]

In my experience, when you struggle to find the keeper from a set it means that none of them work.

[Ed Hawco]

#1 is definitely “better” from a classical perspective. And it’s just plain good. #2 feels off-balance to me, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact it can be a good thing. The punctum, if you will, that makes it work, is that cross-like shadow at the bottom.

[Dave Kocher]

Neither. Cropping V1 to exclude the first pole and everything to its left would give a new image that I think could be further cropped to result in a superior composition. Just my 2 cents.

[robert e]

@Peter Conway,

FWIW, I think you nailed which is "the one" in all three cases. Those "alt" frames only confirm your good judgement, I feel. Congrats!

[Jeff1000]

Version 1 carries strong symbolism with the electrical pole practically the main subject, and the pole being representative of the cross and crucifixion. The landscape, sky, street, and the cross spark the imagination.

[JOHN B GILLOOLY]

Another post that collides with my issue of the moment! I "like" both images. And I bet I would also "like" many of the 35 discards. (What did you do with those? Have they been deleted?}

Part of the issue here is that they are both good. And while each of us has varying things to say in a manner of critiquing them, without the other to compare it to, we probably would have just seen a photograph that we generally liked.

That is the current dilemma that I am grappling with. Digital makes it so easy to work a scene, or a subject, that you end up with too many comparable images to weigh. Settling on the fact that reify and redact (from an old favorite TOP post) is where the rubber meets the road, I'm left frustrated and overwhelmed. Because I shoot a lot!

[Richard Parkin]

I like Dave Kocher’s suggestion, on the first image, to crop out the first pole. It brings into prominence the line of distant poles that are lost otherwise.

[nextSibling]

Analyzing composition feels like literary criticism. There's value in it, but it often feels too far removed from the typical audience to add much to their experience.

These days I prefer to try and find the story in the image. Or, at least, a way to relate to it. For what it's worth, your #1 feels like I'm looking back over my shoulder, maybe checking I'm not being followed. #2 feels like I'm in the middle of a journey to somewhere unfamiliar.