A photo editor writes
Filed in Art & commerce - September 21, 2007Yes it’s true. Everyone. All the top editorial photographers take bad photos.
They just don’t show it to me. Ever.
Thing is… I know everyone takes bad photos, it happens and it’s not a big deal… I just don’t wanted to be reminded of it when I’m looking for a photographer.
The promo, website and portfolio are all places where the possibility exists for you to remind me that shoots can sometimes turn out bland and then I suddenly get the feeling that the shoot I was about to hire you for will turn out bland.
I think I know why you do it. You don’t have enough material yet or you want to show me how you can shoot portraits, food, B&W, color, holga, photoj, etc…
I want to live in a fantasy world where every single shoot is perfect. The best photographers let me.
A moderately new blog (front page), which won’t last long. Some indiscretion will kill it off before the end of the year. Worth reading now.
I’ve been thinking a lot about editing recently, and the quoted post brings together a number of those strands of thought. Editing for your best work is, of course, shooting at a moving target – a task that can never be completed. But I can quite see how the temptation exists to put the ‘good enough’ in a portfolio simply to stop there being a hole. Standing back and looking from the outside is very difficult.
More editing thoughts to follow…
I think the picture a day trend militates against strong editing. You must pick one for each day. You can’t make 365 GOOD pictures a year. You have to throw some that aren’t so great in.
September 21, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
Erik,
I’ve always thought that the picture a day thing is best seen as a part of the process of editing. A long list, if you like. It is also a motivator if you happen not to be a completer-finisher.
Anybody who goes to any picture a day blog and expects to see something great everyday misunderstands something fairly basic about photography.
However, having said that, I agree that feeling that you need to fill the page every day can lead to producing something that is ‘good enough’ (i.e. not very interesting) if you aren’t shooting enough to create the necessary volume of choices. The trap is that the good things about photoblogging come from regular posting, but regular posting can lead to bad things.
September 22, 2007 @ 8:25 am