Old School, Eastern Montana 2003*
What will you find when you go back to look at photographs you made decades ago? When Edward Weston looked at some of his old photographs, he remembered how young he was at the time and was almost kind of embarrassed to look at the images. I know my standards for what constitutes a “good” image have risen considerably since I began making photographs. The technical standards for excellence have increased with the ability of digital cameras to focus and expose perfectly every time. More importantly, my aesthetic standards have risen, too. The important question is, “How many of your old photographs can live up to your current standards?”
If the answer is “not many,” then I think that’s a good thing. Continued improvement is what you want to have not only for your photography, but for your life. With the advanced tools available in software, you should be able to “fix” just about any technical problem in a film negative. Of course, the only thing you really “can’t fix in post” is content. And isn’t content the thing that separates the good from the great photographers?
* A digital file. The original is all of 666kB. I wonder if there is something significant about the file size.
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