Tangled Thoughts

I love photography.  Occasionally I will even take nice photos that I am proud of.  This makes it frustrating when I take less than average photos; I always want to top my last picture and improve my photos every time.

I like my camera, a Nikon D40, but some days it seems that my camera doesn’t like me.  Sometimes I take decent shots, but other times I’m left looking through the viewfinder, puzzled.  What I see, and what I actually capture are often two different things. And don’t even get me started on attitude. From both my camera and myself.

A couple of years ago, during the summer, I was at the beach. I had taken my camera, and as our little friend Parker played in the sand I thought “Hey perfect photo opportunity right here!” It was a sunny day, the beach is a great location, even the colors were great; Parker was wearing red, playing with a yellow truck, and the evening sun made for perfect lighting.

Awwwwww cute, right?

Except that it wasn’t.  I was laying in the sand snapping pictures of kids playing in the water, and instead of a “professional photographer” I probably got classed as some kind of professional weirdo.

Later that night when I was looking through my photos I was happy with the results.  Parker looked charming in his red shirt, and the lighting was perfect.  But then I realized: while taking the photos, I had completely forgotten a certain detail: the horizon line.

There it was, in all of its slanted glory.  Tipping diagonally across the background.  Nearly every photo had a crooked line.

I was not impressed.  How did this happen?  How did the photos end up with a terrible slanted lines?  I wanted to delete them all, and probably would have, except for the fact that they were special, and very cute.

Instead of deleting them, it was a bit of post processing that helped save the day that time.  I’m not a fan off too much editing.  I mean, you have to know what you’re doing with that otherwise you might distort the image and it would look like Parker is slanting off the side of the photo.  But of course, post processing was needed that time, at least then it wouldn’t look like I wasn’t paying attention!

Sometimes regret isn’t needed.  Sure, the photos have crooked diagonal lines, and there might be some object in the background drawing the eye to the wrong place, but mistakes should help you improve, if I learned something through the mistakes, then they weren’t for nothing.  If you’re afraid to fail, you’ll never try, and you’ll never improve.

It’s one thing to learn about photography theory, it’s another to actually get out and practice what you’ve read about.  When it comes down to it, I would rather risk making mistakes, than miss capturing those moments spent with someone I love.

That day at the beach will always be there, not to remind me of my mistakes, but to remind me of what I learned…and of course to remind me of the good memories of a fun day out.