Open Mike: Two Photography Rules I Go By

What follows is just me. I'm not telling you how to live.

Mess of eggs: First, when I get home from shooting with a new card, I don't assume I've gotten something. For years, I believe I did think, as a sort of natural assumption, that the effort I had made would pay off with a keeper or two at least; after all, I believe in my subterranean self that I'm a genius and that fickle fortune smiles on me. "The Nothing Rule" is a more rational corrective to that. Sometimes you go out, you look for pictures, you go through all the proper motions, you heave your butt in and out of the car and tiresomely erect the tripod and tiresomely knock it down again over and over, and—surely the minor godlets of photography will prove to have been on your side? But sometimes not.

My father was not a cook, but he cooked a few things very well because he gave time and attention to mastering them. The two of these I remember were mushroom soup and omelettes. His recipe for mushroom soup was published in Gourmet magazine, no less. (The Condé Nast monthly Gourmet, founded in 1941, was the first American magazine devoted entirely to food; the New York Times said of it that "Gourmet is to food what Vogue is to fashion." It came to an end in this month 15 years ago.) The other was French omelettes cooked in the traditional style, for which he used a traditional pan purchased in France which, he bragged, "never touched water"—it was cleaned by being rubbed vigorously with a generous amount of salt. Dad loved France and everything about it. Anyway, his dictum where omelettes were concerned was "sometimes you get an omelette, sometimes you get a mess of eggs." Which seems like it could double for a maxim for life, along with similar sayings such as, "sometimes you hunt the bear, sometimes the bear hunts you." Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

Anyway, I try to approach a new card full of pictures with an open mind, and the most important thing I need to be open to, because it's the hardest one to accept, is that there might be nothing good there. You have to edit with your eyes; not with your mind, or your ideas, your expectations, etc., and especially not with your pride, ego, or self-sympathy. Sometimes you get a yes and sometimes you get a mess of eggs.

The Nothing Rule is that it's possible even for your brilliant self to go hunting or fishing for pictures and come home skunked.

Cold heart: Closely linked to The Nothing Rule is another: Never Salvage. (Linked, because if you come home with nothing, chances are you'll try to force a few of them to being something.) This one's almost impossible for me to follow perfectly; it is, rather, one of those rules I have to keep on learning over and over again, succeeding most of the time, perhaps, but also stumbling and falling on occasion, succumbing to the temptation to make something out of almost-something. This is one I learned from Henri Cartier-Bresson, who talked about it on several occasions: there is only no and yes. There is never almost, never close, never I can work with that, never I'll fix it. 

Have you ever been tempted to "save" a color picture in which the colors are ghastly by converting it to B&W? Have you ever taken 127 pictures of a scene or motif and assumed that one of them has to be good, so you pick the best one and dive into your bag of Photoshop tricks to help it along? We were talking about cropping on Friday. Cropping because that's how to get a "yes" is one thing, but. The "but" is that cropping in an attempt to salvage a picture, never mind how valiant the attempt, is...wrong. So wrong. Only you know the difference. But...watch for it.

Mind you, I'm not saying that a "hit" doesn't deserve careful post-processing, or judicious cropping, or whatever it requires. I'm also not saying you can't show your near misses, or that pictures made for some utilitarian purpose can't be "good enough." As a camera and lens tester I've shown a great many pictures that aren't very good pictures! All I'm saying is that when you find yourself sewing together body parts and implanting the brain of Abby Normal, you're gonna get a Frankenstein. And you can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t. Even if you can make Fronkenshteen sing and dance to "Putting on the Ritz."

If you're like me, sometimes you might not even know you're salvaging at all until later. You pick a shot you wanted to work, you hoped would work, you worked to make work, and you go all the way through the motions just like it was a "yes." Then, four weeks later, you stumble upon it again and instantly realize that you had completely forgotten all about it in the interim. It had no staying power; it didn't stick in your mind. Caught by surprise, seeing it un-armored with your fond hopes for for it, your pride in what you did, you realize, also instantly, that it is nothing but a piece of sh*t. I use that expression on purpose, because I actually knew a very accomplished photographer and teacher who expressed the opinion that students' attitude of attachment to their own jejune efforts resembled nothing so much as a newly potty-trained toddler's affection for their own poops. Yikes! That's a little harsh.

Yet good photographers are cold-hearted when they edit. If something is not entirely a "yes," completely a success by whatever internal measure or instinct they use to define that, then it has to be the opposite. Flush it down the toilet; don't waste time. The impulse to salvage a frame or a file that you only wish were better is a sure sign that it shouldn't make your cut. I try to resist having proprietary regard for my failed tries just because it's something my precious self engaged with.

A friend you trust
So, my Nothing Rule says that when I start editing, I need to be open-minded even to the idea that I might have gotten skunked; Never Salvage states that whenever I try to treat a picture like a fixer-upper, it's a sign that I need to be callous and coldhearted, cast it aside, and move on.

As an epilogue here, I'll add one more thought with no dictum attached—the idea that it's sometimes a good idea to go through old archives and look at your pictures afresh. I don't know about you, but when I download a card, I keep the processed pictures in the same folder. So I can go back and click through all of them and also know which ones I thought were worthy at the time. Usually, if they actually were good, I'll still think so. And I'll find I remember them.

Of course, you need thick skin to do this, if you're like me, because many of the pictures I thought were good actually kinda aren't. And that's disappointing. But hey, that's art.

I even had the experience once of letting an art school friend—Pam West, now Pam Risdon—go through my contacts. She found two pictures I had overlooked that she thought deserved to be yesses—and she was right*. 

Again, all these thoughts are just my own. Take what you want and leave the rest. There might be rules in photography, or guidelines, but one person's don't have to be another's.

Have a nice Sunday. May your football team win and your light be right!

Mike

*I looked for one of them to show you but couldn't find it. Too many house moves.

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Featured Comments from:

Stan B.: "If I had a photo for every time I put in the effort and 'sincerity,' I'd also be quite famous for all the clamor those same results so rightfully earned. Unfortunately, doesn't quite work that way. I've joyously endured many an entire, gobsmackingly beautiful day full of wondrous light and opportunities, only to come back with nothing, nothing and nothing. All the sweat, risks, perseverance and prayer all for naught; CPR, PS, LR and other life-saving last resorts be damned. It's frustrating, disheartening as hell, and can ultimately culminate into seeking the pursuit of happiness elsewhere....

"Then you have those truly rarified days when life throws you a bone from the ether, and on your way to a lunchtime cup of coffee—a vision, an opportunity...a picture! Be ready, or be damned."

Mike replies: There's a guy at a local weekly farmer's market / crafts fair who exhibits a print of his once-in-a-lifetime picture. He was sitting in a boat fishing with a friend when they heard the roar of an approaching plane. It got louder and louder. When it got really loud, he turned to look—and saw a WWII-era bomber with propeller engines skimming the water headed straight for them. He had his camera with him, worked fast and thought faster, and got the shot.

You never know when it's going to happen.

Eric Rose: "If I get four or five keepers in a year I consider myself fortunate. A keeper being something I would put on my wall, or someone else's wall. That's four or five out of the thousands I take. Does that mean I'm a lousy photographer? Maybe."

Mike replies: Ansel Adams did say, "Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop," but he probably put in more hours than you do. So I'd guess you're doing just fine.

Comments

[Bill S.]

One thing I learned from Kirk Tuck's blog was it's OK to go out with a camera and enjoy photographing, and then come home and delete them all.

[Nikojorj]

I've got a companion to these two good rules : take time to edit.
Always save your pictures when you get back home, but let the files sit for a time (a few months in my case) you that you're neither disappointed to have nothing, nor tempted to salvage something.

[Vijay]

I find the Nothing Rule easier to follow when I shoot film. The time between taking the photos and seeing them dampens any expectations I have, positive or negative. It also makes me more open to spotting a keeper from any photos that I thought might end up in the reject pile when I pressed the shutter.

[Nick]

What is the intended use of the photos that have a high bar of being good enough? If it's just for my own hobby use, anything 'decent but not great', or better, is still getting basic editing and exported into my keepers folder. Only the best ones of these may be posted online, but there was no reason not to keep decent ones to look at again later for learning or rememberance of what I've done and where I've been (let's say they're travel pics).

When I occasionally work professionally, anything 'decent' still goes to the client (eg weddings, events) - the 'portfolio worthy' pics from any wedding might number in the low single digits but the client expects 5-800 pics.

These rules make perfect sense if the target is to print them (which has a cost) or to show them publicly either online or to submit to a competition or gallery etc. But if i go on a trip and come back with 1000 photos, I'm not going to reject them all, I'm still going to edit 100+ of them to have a personal gallery to look at later or show my family perhaps.

Very interesting rules though, but I think it depends on the target usage! If just as a hobby, the postprocessing is part of the effort and time put into the hobby? Otherwise quick rejections could be antithetical to the process of learning.

[Kye Wood]

This should have been a Film Friday post.

Pivoting to how your Yes to No ratio improves when clicking the shutter costs money.

Nothing focuses the mind like when using a precious resource. Film.

[hugh crawford]

I had a client when I was first starting out and was doing party photography that were mostly an even mix of fashion, models, celebrities, and funny, looking rich people. The client would go through a box of slide, separating it into two piles. One pile was in his opinion, publishable, and the other pile in his opinion all had something wrong with them. The second, unpublishable pile was by far more interesting than the publishable pile. So there is that. I lost all that color work in a move years ago to it makes no difference now.

I do still have some old black-and-white negatives from back then, and about half the rolls have between five and 10 shots where I wanted to finish up the role so that I had a full role in the camera or it was the end of the day and whatever event I was taking pictures of was finished.
Most of the time the stuff at the end of the roll 30 years later is vastly more interesting.

Anyway, Dirck Halstead has a much better story about the importance of never deleting anything.
https://digitaljournalist.org/issue9807/editorial.htm

[Herman Krieger]

With a photos, you can always come across a cropper.

[Chris Kern]

If you’re not deleting at least 90-99 percent of your captures, you’re probably either exceptionally talented or a hoarder.

Mike: Cropping because that's how to get a "yes" is one thing, but. The "but" is that cropping in an attempt to salvage a picture, never mind how valiant the attempt, is...wrong. So wrong. Only you know the difference. But...watch for it.

I think you’ve qualified that assertion to the extent that it no longer really has any clear meaning. Cropping is like any other post-processing technique: tonal and color adjustments, perspective correction, removing visual elements in the image that simply distract, etc. Performed properly, alone or together, they can transform a capture that didn’t work straight out of the camera into one that really catches the eye of the viewer. I don’t entirely disagree with your point, but I think the way you asserted it is a tad too dogmatic.

[Jeff1000]

I feel like the Emperor who had no clothes. I have to admit that when I have a picture that doesn’t work in color, I’ll switch it to black-and-white, then I usually convince myself it looks good. In fact, converting to black-and-white is one of my go-to pro editing techniques. I feel so exposed now, no pun intended.
📸😃👍

[I did say, twice, once at the beginning and once at the end, that I'm only speaking for myself. In fact I'm not sure any two photographers does everything the same, from initial thought to final form. --Mike]

[James Bullard]

I'm afraid I have to disagree. That said, I shoot everything in RAW format so the initial image that pops up in LR rarely looks like what my eye saw that prompted me to make the exposure. I treat the image that comes out of the camera as a painter uses underpainting. It is the basis for recreating what I saw and felt as a witness to the scene. If I ditched every image that required only a tweak here and there, I'd have nothing in my catalog.

I knew a guy who practiced what you preach. He shot slide film most of his life and he never learned editing even after switching to digital. He would get a batch of slides back and throw all but one or two into the trash. He left his digital camera set to shoot JPGs and did the same. What he kept was more 'camera' than 'photographer' IMO.

My point is that cameras don't create photos, people do, and cameras don't 'see' like we do. We have to coax the equipment and the process to create our images. Early B&W photographers didn't have the tools we have today. Ansel Adams was an innovator in expanding photographers' toolkit and the kit has been expanding ever since. I keep most of my images and look back at them periodically because the toolkit is constantly growing as is my skill. I have converted to B&W and re-edited several very old images that, at the time, I could not make the image feel like what I originally saw. Just like a painter, we learn with practice.

[Jeff1000]

I know Mike, I just merely meant that by you speaking about yourself it made real something I knew about myself, but I didn’t want to think about since it always somewhat embarrassed me, hence feeling exposed.

Anyway it’s all good because we’re just basically talking about two-dimensional depictions of reality in rectangular or square shapes.

[Omer]

“Now when I talked to God I knew he'd understand
He said, "Sit by me, and I'll be your guiding hand"
But don't ask me what I think of you
I might not give the answer that you want me to

Oh well”

From the song “Oh Well” by the original Fleetwood Mac.

[darlene]

Never overlook opportunities to learn. How do you refine your editing skills? How do you measure your progress? As post-processing tools advance, so do our chances to explore and master innovative creative techniques. I embrace every opportunity to grow and improve. While some may only see a mess of broken eggs, others see the potential for creativity. Not everyone can look beyond the mess to see what’s possible.

[Ken]

"If something is not entirely a 'yes,' completely a success by whatever internal measure or instinct they use to define that, then it has to be the opposite."

If you throw out everything that does not initially "work", then you have no way to later revisit the images to see if you missed something or if another image from a set better says what you were trying to say. You also can't go back to learn from your choices later, even as your tastes change and evolve. Plus, throwing out images forecloses the possibility of future tech advances that can turn a slight miss into a keeper, and maybe into a favorite - something like denoise software or advanced sharpening tools that we now have but didn't a decade or longer ago.

Finally, it is a lot less consequential to throw out pictures from a routine walk in the park than from a vacation or family get-together - a distinction that seems important when talking about being cold hearted or whatever about deciding what to keep.

Your hobby, your decisions of course. But it seems a bit harsh/rash, even with all your disclaimers.

[I never throw out anything! --Mike]

[Richard G]

I’ve not thrown much away in Lightroom, and occasionally I’ve resurrected something quite good. This week I’ve been ruthless. I don’t delete in camera but often delete on import, 80%, particularly if my engagement has been partial. I will convert from colour to black and white often, not because the colours are bad, but because colour is bad. Blotchy skin, distracting combinations of colour - they’re not part of the conception of the picture at all. I often shoot obligatory in black and white, Monochrom Leica or film, but I love colour, when colour is integral to the shot. Color photography is harder because the inevitable colour, or colours in the shot have to be justified.

An interesting analogy to being a poor editor of one’s own photography is playing an instrument. András Schiff described a crucial step in his early development as a pianist was being able to hear himself. Even if you do play the meaning of that might seem odd: of course you hear yourself. But you don’t. At 64 I’ve been limping along with the piano for exactly fifty years, with lessons from someone really good only for two years, over thirty years ago. Just in the last week I’m beginning to be able to hear myself more clearly. If it was anything else, or I was anyone else I should have given up. But like the light and the process of walking with a camera, I can’t, and won’t.

The interest in contact sheets such as the Magnum book in recent years lifts the veil on how the pros take a lot of shots. None of these things are easy. But we also know that burst mode on a DSLR ten per second will never get that shot that’s worth keeping. As you said, and Cartier-Bresson encapsulated it, eye and heart and mind on the one axis makes the picture. When you’re intensely engaged you may get the picture, and you know it at the time often. Maybe it wasn’t the one you thought because you didn’t yet open up a stop or you moved, struggling with 1/30s, but maybe it ends up being the one two frames later. It’s rare that you get a great shot when you figure maybe I’ll take the camera along. And if you’re visiting, or going with another person, forget it. That’s not successful photographing territory.

[Bear.]

I tend not to delete because all sorts of things can change. I tried some experimental motion blurred photos in Hong Kong in 2016 - I had about 25 images with a couple of attempts for each image. I didn't like them and they seemed noisy and just too much work in post to do anything with. So I forgot about them. At the start of this year, I happened upon them looking in Lightroom for a different image, brought them up, twiddled and fiddled a bit - most significantly, I ran them through On1 No Noise AI and up-pressed them in Resize AI to 36 x 24 inches. Lo and behold! I had produced 10 images, which have been given a three month exhibition run all to themselves.