The part that remains unshared

During my recent move, I came across a box of prints, earlier images that I had printed. A habit that I got into since I picked up a camera.

As I was going through the box, a huge dread had washed over me. I was so embarrassed at the sight of these images. My instinct was to treat these images as failures but that would have been wrong of me. I realised that without these images and quite a bit of work and a lot of patience, my images would frankly would have remained the same.

Even now I still fail with some images. Please have a look at the image that I am sharing today. Although it has been edited, it is an image that I consider a fail. They are so many things that I would do differently.

Please have a look at the image that I am sharing this week. The vision is there but it was badly executed. Even though I quite like the placement of the main subject, there isn’t a lot of details. All the other surrounding elements are too small to stand out. They skyline isn’t quite straight. On the other hand, the edit isn’t that great either. It just doesn’t flow as it isn’t balanced. The foreground is simply too dark and the water isn’t as smooth as I would like. That’s just an issue with capture. It is important to always get the capture right as not everything can be fixed in photoshop.

Even though many successful images are shared, what is not shared are all the other images that fail. These failed images teach me something and most importantly it allows me to practise. Without practise and failure, there will be no growth.

What nobody truly shares is the full process and what it truly entails. The truth that we are all aware of is that the process is a bumpy road full of ups and downs. A difficult and confusing road that when we learn is when we embrace the failures as well as our triumphs. An essential part of the growing process that we often forget when we are stuck in a creative rut.

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