May 11 2007
The Art of Returning and releasing
I recently posted a new image on my Robart Photographic arts site. So lets get the blatant plug out of the way - Click Here!
There is a story and point behind that posting. I was reviewing my old and discontinued gallery site when I saw a picture of the islands at Ohnuma quasi national park and had sudden spark of the muse. I realised that I had missed an opportunity. In other words the picture wasn’t right so, I loaded it into Lightroom (love that software) and got to work. You can see the end result on my website.
So I’ve posted two pictures a long time apart, that both have a different feel and ambience, yet both cover the same subject.
Was the first posting wrong?
Did I get the picture wrong on my first go?
Was I right to post it?
The answer is - I don’t think so, to the first two questions, and yes to the third.
Originally I made a decision to leave the image as it was after a certain amount of processing. You see at some point in any creative endeavour you have to stop. You have to stop adjusting and stop tweaking and actually release it into the wild, for the world to enjoy. When you do release things sometimes they are perfect and sometimes incomplete. The point is that you are following a process. You are completing the cycle from inspiration, to creation, to letting your work breathe and fly. Sure some things are not perfect, but if you don’t make that decision your work will never get out and never be seen.
I let that picture out.
Then later thought it could be proved.
Now two pictures exist for people to enjoy and if I am really lucky - talk about them.
That I think is better than no pictures.
The world needs art. Art needs to be free. Not locked up in a dark box in the hope that one day it will be perfect. At some point you have to let the world see your work. Even if doing that can seem harder than actually creating it in the first place.