Let's Discuss: The Perfectionist

The Perfectionist

 

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We hear it so often, edit edit edit! before you post , or make a fool

of yourself in front of the mighty(s). It's not good enough to post

what you think it's good. They(the pix) have to appeal to a mass

audience and be within the mighty(S) definition of good composition

and emotionally engaging...or am I wrong? ok Im wrong.;)

 

Imagine a person, starting out fresh in photography, be it in any

era, experimenting, but so afraid to show his work because he was

told to edit, edit and edit..before displaying them.

 

He then set a standard so high for himself every picture taken by him

seems insignificant and trashy. He burned rolls and rolls of film to

get that group of excellent images he was told by the mighty(s) to

get. Those images however are lost in his mind. He never really

remembered what those images were, or how he could ever achieve them.

All because he was torturing himself to over-excel.

 

His pictures were actually very good, but he never knew it because he

never dared to show the public...he was told to edit, remember?

 

He wanted to display his works but self-imposed shame prevented the

world from seeing his master-pieces. A great lost.

 

On his death bed, he continued to take pictures, of the ceiling,

hoping to make a last ditch in creating the perfect picture the mighty

(s) would be proud of...but he forgot to put in film....click

click...gone. He left with thousands of prints/frames not exposed to

the public, like art not seen. He died a lonely man, unaccomplished

even within himself. He should not have taken up photography. The

pressure was too great. Perhaps he did himself in, perhaps not.

 

 

Do you know of anyone the same? Do you think setting too high a

standard for oneself is self destructive? When do you think one

should stop editing? Do we need to satisfy anyone everytime? SHould

we be so hard on people who try to put art forward? How can we as the

mighty(s) help, instead of applying more pressure.

 

 

Why are we so serious? time to let go and have fun.

 

PS: no, im not tripping

I get my best pics when I am less serious and just having fun. Listening to much to others about editing is silly. I display my favorite images in my home. Some in cheapo 4x6 frames and some in nice larger displays, some would not like all my pics but I love them because of the people and places they remind me of. No critic can appreciate an image like the artist that creates it because sometimes you just needed to be there. I think its great to ask what people think, but in the end if you like the image and got a winner in your own heart, then nothing can be more perfect.

Travis:

 

I have gone through that period but I got a pretty thick skin these days, especially on PN. I have enjoyed seeing some of nice photos here but have seen craps as well. Not a complaint at all: I love seeing images, any kind, good and bad. I learn from them both ways, really.

 

Now, I am not saying that editing is not important and I do believe it is essential. But editing will not in any way gaurantee your images will be warmly received always. To be honest, the images of mine that have gone through the hardest editing process often turned out to be the most disliked images among PN users. So it is either because my editing skill sucks or people suck.

 

One way or the other, edit is a good practice but don't do it for others.

*raises hand in air*

 

I do this.

And to address the example you made: I think it is pretty common, not just among photographers, but across all art field. Remember Emily Dickenson never published one simgle poem of hers before she died. Lots artists are simply doing what they enjoy doing but never have guts to show their works to anyone else.

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time to let go and have fun</i>

 

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you sure ask a lotta questions for someone whos not serious...

and you sure looks like a misfit(in a gear forum) for someone not interested in gears...too much free time? oh mighty.

what happened to not being serious...? short term memory?

I bet grant has a few gears...

one more thing before I am heading to bed: editing to me really is only good for the time being. I took this photo a couple of years ago when I was tarveling in Beijing and never liked it very much until...recently. Don't know why and don't care why. Something in this photo that I like it now. Will I like it tomorrow? We will see.

 

This much for the editing...for me.<div></div>

The perfect is as much an enemy of the great as the good is.

If you post on a public forum, especially if you post regularly, expect whatever. If the positives don't outweigh the negatives for you, don't post. Simple.

Good for you, good friend Travis.

 

To begin with all professionals are "perfectionists" to the extent that they truly want to do the best job possible. Some go to greater lengths to perfect whatever they are doing than others. Tolstoy's wife hand copied War and Peace something like 12 times. Finally the publishers had to take the manuscript away from him. After his dark night of the soul and religious conversion he renounced his major works. He died enroute to a monistary where he would have spent his last days (he was 82) seeking perfection. Well that was Tolstoy, perhaps the greatest novelist who ever lived.

 

Travis's story is fiction. It is about the photographer who is good but does not think he is good enough. In real life most perfectionists like this stop creating. They start, they say that it isn't good enough, they throw it away and start over again, in the end producing nothing. I've seen this with writers whose perfectionism led to creative blocks. I suppose the irrationally perfectionist photographer finally ends up selling his or her equipment.

 

There are photographs that are more prone to being perfect than others. Still lifes, formal portraits, nudes, any studio work in fact, can achieve perfection (according to the photographer's definitions) more easily than the stuff shot outside, particularly candid photography. There life is in motion and, therefore, out of your control. You can achieve impact but never perfection--not the sort you can achieve in the studio where all is under your control.

 

What so often happens is that artists reach a compromise by following a formula that works--namely one that pleases the most people they happen to be dependent upon. This is not always a bad thing. But it is seldom a very good thing. In photography the result more often than not is the technically perfect but soul-less nice photograph that you can safely hang in your living room with bothering anyone--as long as the photograph doesn't clash with the decore. A lot of people make a living churning out cookie cutter photographs that sell like cookies. They have discrovered perfection where it most counts--in their pocketbooks. The more power to them. But let them stay in places like Carmel where the galleries are full of cookie cutter paints of luminous waves at sunset.

 

The sad truth about over-perfectionists is that in the end they cannot ever live up to their own high standards and give up. Achievement requires public interaction, which entails using honest criticism to your advantage and tuning out the idiots so that they do not derail you.

travis not serious??? hmmmm?? who is then?? heh?

Is this the online version of Psychology Today?

Travis, you're an excellent photographer. Nobody can appeal to everyones' tastes 100% of the time. And tastes change over time. A "great" photo can look trite years down the road. A boring photo can later become intriguing, because the world changes too. You do a good job of capturing people and their emotions on film. Keep it up!

Hmmm�post everything, let Jesus sort �em out. The shots need to be seen to be commented upon.

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Crits, good or bad and it doesn�t matter �who� * they are coming from are only opinions, take what you need from them and leave the rest.

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(* = paying clients excluded of course).

Ray it's not about posting om a public forum, it's about making images that you'd like to show to others - or not. Is editing just about 'good' vs 'bad'? Or does editing imply an audience? I edit and edit; yes, for posterity; no, good heavens no. For myself, just for the fun of it? In that case i would have more fun and be less critical... easier said than done. It's a long time since i've really thought about this. Thanks travis!

<I>�Nobody can appeal to everyones' tastes 100% of the time.�</I>

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Al, exactly�and if everyone either likes or dislikes someone�s work than something�s wrong.

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First, I am very serious about not taking any of this too seriously.

 

Having said that. I don't think you can ever aim too high, especially when creating something. You stop editing when you're happy, or when the deadline strikes. Unless someone else is paying you, you don't have to satisfy anyone. And if you're like my Uncle Mel, you'll never be statisfied...but, he died lonely and a shoe salesman.

 

Enough of my family. Should we be hard on someone who's trying to be creative? It depends. Are they clueless and prentious? Then, sure. Acutally, "clueless and pretentious" are my agents. BUT, more importantly we should be even harder on anyone who really want's to improve their work with feedback. Honesty is a great tool. Anyone who feels too much pressure from posting on this loud sometimes obnoxious public forum should find kinder surroundings. Perhaps in a class, a workshop or a quiet sanatorium overlooking a glade.

 

Art/photography is about communication. Without the desire/ability to show one's creative output then it's a self abusive activity...and that, as everyone on this forum knows, will cause you to go blind.

 

Sooo, Travis. Start printing those images. Peel them off your monitor. Perhaps there's a exhibition in your future and you, or someone like you, can stop taking pictures of the ceiling. :>)

 

And most importantly, don't be like my uncle Mel.

"I used to be a perfectionist, but I wasn't very good at it, so I had to give it up."

 

This place sits just next to the main crossroads in my little central Ontario village. Not your usual Victorian brick and gingerbread wood trim house. Not shown is an insul brick covered house which is at the corner and used to be for many years a family run butcher shop.

 

I see this place pretty much every day. The town was a boom town in the 1920s. Lumber. Now it is a tourism summer place, cottagers.

 

I post this because visually it hooks me as a very non-typical Ontario building.

 

I wish I could make a better photograph of it, and I will from time to time keep after it.

 

Oh, by the way, it is opposite a milk/convenience store. A year or so ago, a couple of guys broke into it. The young man who lives opposite came out and confronted them. He is a large guy and had a crow bar in his hands. They fled and were caught. No gun though. Lucky for him. Lucky for them.<div></div>

I hope my contradictory comments on the Temple Man photo weren't the reason for the introspection that produced The Perfectionist. On the other hand (here we go again...LOL) maybe that was my point exactly. There are no absolutes, not even perfection. Everything must be viewed and evaluated in the context of its surroundings, whether that be other contemporary photographs or the different expectations and mores of another point in time

Al, don't be silly, not about that at all. Anyway, this post is hopefully about editing and how one stops editing. How one values one's work as sufficiently good. And how one progress in that way.

 

Personally, i don't edit much. But I can tell from first scan if a piece is worth printing or showing. If I don't like it, I sure hope noone does.;)

 

Life of a perfectionist is tough.

 

And grant, I can respect your urge to articulate your photographic values and thoughts openly. But don't question why I post and when I post or when I ask. This has nothing to do with you or anyone else. I can return 10x the favour if I'd wanted to.

Travis, remember the thread "crap on your hard disk" a little while back? Turned out to be a pretty nice thread just from what people thought was junk.

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One man's garbage...

Some people apparently can't deal with truthful opinion, for what reason I have no idea. Reasonable questions are mistaken for condemnation. Honest talk is interpreted as personal attack.