Thinking in the Pub

This image illustrates two points, both important to the photographer: first, look over your old work from time to time.  Your artistic vision changes, and the simple passage of time lends a new perspective on work that you may have seen only from a single viewpoint.  Second, play with pictures.  Some of my best images have come when I take a negative that looks second-rate and start cropping and playing with contrast and Curves.  Most often, the picture is trying to speak to me, and I’m not listening.

Another lesson: if you wonder if it’s worth trying a shot, do it!  At worst, you will waste some film.  The last three best Images I have done have all been ones in marginal conditions where I wondered if the shot was worth it.

I honestly do not remember where I took this image, or the settings I that used.  I would imagine f/5.6 at a moderately slow shutter speed of 1/10 or 1/25 second, with the Voigtlander perched as unobtrusively as possible on a table top.  Originally, I looked at the out-of-focus chair back and dismissed the image, then decided to play with it.  Cropping out extraneous detail on the right and bottom placed the subject more powerfully according to the Rule of Thirds, and adjusting contrasting, brightness, and Curves brought out the reason I was attracted to this scene in the first place: the gentle lamplight falling on this pensive subject in a pub.  Once completed, the lighting in this image reminds me of the way the old Dutch masters used light in their images.

So don’t let good images be lost in the dust of your archives- look, dig, think, and like so much in life, don’t be afraid to dive into an enterprise that might not work.  More often than not, you will be surprised.