"good enough" what does it mean to you ?

[Tin Can]

I hang my failures on my wall, to study. Some stay a long time.

[Vaughn]

When I was making silver gelatin prints, 16x20 from 4x5 negs, my initial exposure would be a little light and around 20 seconds. Then I would burn in selected areas for the next 5 to 15 minutes -- almost sculpturing the image. I would work on one image over a 10 to 12 hour period, and about 10 pieces of paper. It was an intense way to work, and working with 16x20 allowed me to visually walk around in the image. I marked each print in sequence and if the negative was well exposed/processed and the vision excellent, I could usually nail it down in 7 sheets and then make three good copies with the last 3 sheets in the pack.

Thankfully I marked the prints. After many years, I am hard pressed to tell the difference between #4 and #10!

[mdarnton]

For me, "good enough" is that I can walk away and leave it, and not let it eat away at me. When that happens depends on the job and how important it is to me.

[Vaughn]

It means one notch above inadequate and one or two notches below better than necessary.

Does this mean that better than necessary is good enough for you?

[Jac@stafford.net]

Good enough for me means no futile pursuits for a perfection that arises from my personal perfectionist angst, practically a pathology, which serves no effective end. As in investing, a thousand second class stocks beat the leader in the long run, although I admit I have not time enough to spend it, nor to be recognized in the deluge, the dilution of our work in art/photography.

[DrTang]

means I'm bored or tired

[Michael Clark]

YEP, me too.

means I'm bored or tired

[Ray Heath]

Photography, and most things in life, are dictated by "good enough".

4x5 is "good enough" even though larger formats are available;
my local landscape is "good enough";
I'm not HCB but I'm "good enough";
my family and friends are "good enough" to make portraits of.

The important thing is not whether its good enough, but what you do with it.

[Adrian Pybus]

I find you can overwork photos/paintings until you look at the technique used rather than the wanted image.
E.g. the grays in the photograph are so good looking you don't see the picture anymore.

[Doremus Scudder]

The problem with "good enough" is that we usually use the term when we settle for second best, or simply give up trying to do better when we run out of time, patience or skill. Sure, in an engineering environment, "good enough" means "adequate for the task." This is fine for a lot of types of photography as well.

I'm trying for excellence, however. And, while I realize that "the perfect is the enemy of the good," I like to get to the point where I look at a print and at least say, with a satisfied smile, "that's good!". Better is, "that's excellent!" I don't think it is too much to demand of myself that I do good to excellent work. I think "good enough" is a step below that, so I'll reiterate: for me, "good enough, isn't."

Best,

Doremus