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Thread: Post trip blues

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Jan 1999
    Location
    Louisiana
    Posts
    287

    Post trip blues

    After a week of shooting in the West Texas desert, I returned with excitement of seeing the results. Once again I was disappointed, and I should know better tha n to get excited before making even the first print. An excursion to sand dunes turned out rather disappointing. My best shot was fog ged when I accidentally pulled up the dark slide ever so slightly while in a hur ry to shoot before the sun went down. My second best shot has bad vignetting in the upper corners and my 3rd best shot suffered from some type of blotching, pro bably from using old fixer. I still had some good pictures, and have yet to develop all of my film so maybe I'll get better results in the next batch. I think I have finally gotten to the point of realizing on the ground glass when an image has potential and is more than a large format snapshot. And using PMK has helped save negatives that I would have trouble developing with other chemic als. Does anyone else suffer from the malady of being disappointed upon seeing what t hey actually got? I went through the same thing last year, but after a few month s of not looking at them my fotos started to grow on me. Maybe it had something to do with the familiar becoming contemptuous? It seems like some of the fotos don't actually come to life until after matting and framing. Any thoughts on this?

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Jan 1998
    Posts
    262

    Post trip blues

    Pre-visualization. I think Ansel Adams talks about this. It means what you think your pictures look like before you have the unfortunate experience of actually seeing them.

  3. #3

    Post trip blues

    I took my Rollie/spot meter/no tripod on a bike trip in Switzerland. I used TMax 400 so I could hand hold at higher shutter speeds. 7 rolls of "why did I take that?" maybe 5 decent pics. 1 whole roll of the covered bridge in Luzerne/slightly fuzzy self timed picture of my sons and me on top of Brunig pass(focus) /many Alpine mediocre pics/nice shots but not sharp when enlarged (camera movement). I guess I'll have to go again

  4. #4

    Post trip blues

    Bruce,

    The first time I go anywhere on a photographic excursion I am invariably let down by the results. All the initial wonder and excitement I experience being somewhere for the first time does not seem to translate easily to film.

    The lighting always seems just a little more flat and lifeless. The composition is not as tight. Things like improper focus, poor metering, or sloppy use of lens attachments resulting in vignetting are more readily apparent in the developed negative when sitting in my darkroom, after the fact, than they were while on the spot.

    For the last ten years or so I've been working on a project photographing the many, little village churches in the northern New Mexico area. I've returned again and again with my 8x10 to the same churches, photographing the same things again and again, armed with the knowledge that my previous efforts were just not as successful as I'd hoped. Sometimes my initial efforts, with the passage of time, reveal themselves to be better than I had first thought; often they don't.

    I think that to really be able to successfully capture what you're experiencing and seeing, you have to be very familiar with the subject. This means either staying in one spot for a long period of time, waiting for just the right light or conditions, or waiting till you discover precisely what it is about the place that makes you want to photograph it.

    Good luck, Sergio.

  5. #5

    Post trip blues

    This might make you feel a bit better. In October 1998 I got an extra week off work for all the overtime I put in that summer. I spent the week by myself at the Bristlecone Pine National Forest, and shot about 40 sheets of T-Max 100 and E100SW. Upon returning I discovered my Readyload holder had malfunctioned and not one sheet had been exposed.

    To make matters worse, but backup Yashica Mat died the first day (wind mecahnism failure) so I didn't even have any 120 film exposed either. And, of course, it was one week of the most incredible light I've ever seen. I went back last summer and got some wonderful shots with my 2x3 Crown Graphic.

    While I was shooting the Bristlecones last August I was disappointed in the light. However, after drum scanning some of the slides I've come to appreciate what I got. I'm heading back next summer with the CG and a Calumet Cadet and a Fuji Quickload holder.

    You are not alone. West Texas has some excellent scenery. Write it off as a scouting trip and a learning experience. This just gives you a good excuse to go back.

  6. #6

    Post trip blues

    Boy this makes me feel better!

    I have found that making larger LightJet prints helps. Since they are larger, they cost more, and take more wall space so I can't do many. So if I get one really good image from a trip, there goes a wall and a wad of money.

  7. #7

    Join Date
    Dec 1997
    Location
    Baraboo, Wisconsin
    Posts
    7,697

    Post trip blues

    Many times I've been disappointed in a group of photos, put away the proofs, then looked through them months or even years later and found several that looked very good and I wondered why I hadn't liked them the first time around. This phenomenon is very common. One explanation I've heard is that right after making the photograph we remember what the scene looked like and what we were trying to accomplish with the photograph. When we see that we failed, we don't evaluate the photograph from any other perspective. But with the passage of time we forget what the scene looked like and what we were trying to accomplish, and are then able just to evaluate it as a photograph without any preconceived notions of what we hoped to get. As to photographing a new area, as someone else mentioned we almost never make good photographs the first time somewhere. I remember John Sexton saying in one of his workshops that if someone offered him a free trip anywhere in the world, he wouldn't go somehwere new but instead would go back to any area he had been to before. I spent a week for the first time in the southwest and out of about 15 rolls of 220 film (that's 220, 20 exposures per roll no less) had no/zero/none photographs that I thought were worth framing. The next year I went back and between large format and medium format I had three excellent photographs. If I go back again I think I might get four or five. As we get to know an area we not only learn from our initial failures but we just have a better idea of what will work and what won't. So I don't think your experience is unusual but I know it can be discouraging. Still, I bet if you put those photographs aside for six months or a year and then come back to them, they'll look a lot better than you now think.
    Brian Ellis
    Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
    a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

  8. #8

    Post trip blues

    Well, let's confess. Most of the time, when I get my slides back from the lab, I am more or less disappointed with what resulted from my one or two days tour. I have regularly t he same kind of technical misadventures you had. More, sometimes the only good shot taken has been ruined by some technical failure at the lab where the films where processed. And if I thought I had a dec ent one left, my wife who is the tougher artistic critic I know and not a dreamer like me would soon bring me back to reality. I have thought many times I should stop spending money on films and burning petrol on m ountain roads, sell all my gear and get my family a decent holiday! What kept me going? I don't know! S ome say photography is addictive, other would say there is something in the genes, I would rather say i n the spirit that pushes men to try seize glimpses of the creative talent that surrounds us. When this im pulse is here, not doing so would be disobeying. For aren't we all the Creator's apprentices? Of course t here where encouraging results also, otherwise I wouldn't dear this comment. Now, if nothing has change d much, I have learned not to depend upon success. Understanding a few rules helped me to accept the un certainty of the results as a normal path and working towards improving the chances for a good wo rk. In previous answers was mentioned the need for going back to where it failed and doing it ag ain until it succeeds. Although for many pictures it will never be possible to gather the same paramete rs one had in the first place, it is very true that one has to apprehend the "spirit" of the place to su ccessfully transmit what one indiscibly felt when urged to take the photo. Some talk of "impregnation". A good friend of mine travels regularly to a few places where he would spend up to two months every ye ar. The first week he hardly unpacks his camera. He says all he could do during that period would be f or the trash. You would not believe it when you see his marvels, but I often feel the same when I leave my work, drive a few hundred kilometers and land in some retired paradise. I feel urged to take photo s by the overall impression of beauty that surrounds me but to my greater despair, am unable to " see". As the light passes by, I just feel miserably inadequate. It's only when I have spent some ti me in the area that I can successfully frame some nice shots. And then, I will have to wait until the slid es are processed to evaluate my successes. Sometimes the reward doesn't come from where I expected. The grandiose shot I thought would be the best proves rather uninteresting and an other one I had fo rgotten about can pull me tears! But honestly, if I could make one very good shot, one that expresses s omething from my soul, each day spent out, I would be the most happy. It's far from being the case! Cha nces of course increase with the choice of places I visit, the season (I'm much more productive during f all than in the midst summer) and the weather conditions (a changing weather gives me more opportuniti es than a clear blue sky), although bringing back a handful of "postcards" doesn't mean much, but you all know this. Well, I already feel a bit better knowing I'm not alone. This Forum is a good group ther apy!

  9. #9

    Post trip blues

    Bruce: As you have already discovered, you ain't alone when it comes to disappointment with a shoot. Even after more than 40 years of amatuer and professional photography, I find I can still blow a shoot as well as a rank amatuer. Although I can usually get what I see after a little work, I still get a large dose of humility once in a while. As a case in point, I shot a beautiful old oak tree a couple of years ago in early spring. It is hundreds of years old and majestic. Since the leaves were just coming out and were a bit yellow, I thought I would enhance the brightness by using a yellow filter. The filter raised the value of the leaves and dropped the value of a slightly hazy sky. The tree almost disappeared agaist the sky as a result. If I hadn't been so all-knowing and shot without a filter I would have gotten a great shot. I can't count the times I have taken beautiful pictures on a darkslide. (Anyone have a formula for developing darkslides?) I have pulled the slide on the wrong side of the holder, had one holder hang up on another in the bag and pull a darkslide, and have managed to make just about every mistake known to photography. I just finished shooting at the beach and without my knowing, my carefully composed shots got progressively worse as the front tripod leg sank slowly into the sand and gradually raised the horizon line. I could have caught that if I had checked between shots. Despite all that, ain't it wonderful when you set up a shot and everything goes well and you get a negative and print that sings. Good shooting, Doug.

  10. #10

    Join Date
    Nov 1998
    Posts
    339

    Post trip blues

    > Does anyone else suffer from the malady of being disappointed upon seeing what they actually got?

    Happens to me all the time. It's _never_ an equipment failure; it's _always_ m y failure to learn from experience. Sometimes things take a while to sink in.

    I've noticed that usually while shooting or getting ready to develop the film I'll have some glimmerings of what I should do, as opposed to what I'm doing, an d that someday I'll have sense enough to do what should be done.

    The solution is really very simple, but often hard to implement. Do you work t o the best of your ability and your ability will improve.

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