I think every artist has a list of those spots that for whatever reason(s) elude their capture. Whether it is the light or the tempo or the context or the mood or the feeling there is something that always seems just a little off with the interpretation.
Actually, I feel that way about many of my photographs. (This topic naturally leads to a discussion of the use of post editing software, but that is a topic for another post.) Sure, I screw up the exposure or the focus or something occurs just as I take the photograph that alters the scene, and while I have more than my fair share of those, those failures are easily identifiable and corrected on the spot or the next time. What I’m talking about now is a much more difficult fix. With such a spot there is this thing that I sense makes it notable. It is this thing which inspires me to photograph it. This thing I want to convey that is missing.
The photograph below is such a spot for me. Comet and I walk past this intersection a lot. For me it is the combination of its light and shadows bouncing off the many different shapes coupled with the interesting vantage point caused by the angles of the intersecting streets and the corresponding alignment of traffic. I’ve taken many photos of it with different lenses and different cameras, at different times in the morning, under different weather conditions using different exposures, from different locations. Each time I felt like I’d missed that thing about the spot that I want my photo to convey, until this one. What is interesting about this one being the one is its focus is soft, and that is not the lens. It is me unintentionally. Such is the creative process that the “error” becomes the creative technique.
Some cropping and some minimal exposure editing in Capture One.
