HA! Gotta love LF!

I had 3 customers come thru before I realized my Pentax Spot Meter had gone wonko - the negatives came out too thin to do P.O.P. prints.

Not wanting to admit that I screwed up, I been pondering what to do with the thin negatives (short of giving a refund). In rumaging thru the darkroom cupboards, I discovered I had a box of 20 year old poly-contrast paper. "Hummm" thought I, "I wonder if I could give some body to those negatives?"

I pushed the RC II to max contrast and printed 8x10s - they came out fine!

I'll shoot the 8x10s with my 4x5 to make new negatives to do the POP contact prints and nobody will ever know I screwed up the first shots :-)

The Pentax is fixed.

(In making musical instruments I discovered that "skill" was not nearly as much doing it right the first time as it is in knowing how to recover from your mistakes!)

Mistake!?

I thought I made a mistake once but turned out it was a creative moment.

Just remember, as many creative breakthroughs, epiphanies, have been made by "happy accidents" as through planned thinking and hard work. It is good to be open to those coincidences and zen moments. Sometimes the realization comes after breaking a few dishes and kicking a few holes in the wall, but then, after the dust clears, you've learned something and maybe, just maybe your inner voice will speak and if you listen you will hear.

When I was studying jazz bass, my teacher would sometimes start laughing in the middle of my solos. He'd say, "you come up with these really interesting ideas, but then you correct them." I wouldn't know what he was talking about until he played the tape back and pointed it out.

I had the same experience in photography once ... I showed someone a contact sheet and he singled out the first frame, which was of someone's foot. I hadn't noticed it, because the picture happened on its own while I was advancing the film (35mm). He said, "why don't you do more like that one," so I did. It was the first series I ever put together.

I think I got better at photography than I did at music because i learned to not correct my good ideas as often.

"...skill was not nearly as much doing it right the first time as it is knowing how to recover from your mistakes!"

Sounds a lot like learning how to fly an airplane ;-)

As the late public television painter Bob Ross always says (in re-runs) "We don't make mistakes; we just have happy accidents."

"...skill was not nearly as much doing it right the first time as it is knowing how to recover from your mistakes!"

Sounds a lot like learning how to fly an airplane

Except you generally have much less time to think about the recovery in the airplane... :-D

Jane, you're a genius; as in

"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must."

Good shooting.

/s/David Beal ** Memories Preserved Photography, LLC

C'lam,

What a hoot! Good recovery.

"If you never make mistakes, you'll never learn anything." I dunno who said that, but it's very true.

Wait a minute. I do know who said it.

Me.

But I could be mistaken.