click photo to enlarge
Sometimes, in the rush and routine of photography, I ignore my own advice. I've long known that it is best to look at and think about a photograph for a while before coming to an opinion about its merits. That's something I've advocated before on this blog. However, when I took my photographs of the old potato harvester that I posted yesterday, due to a dearth of acceptable fresh photographs, I didn't take this elementary step, and posted what I thought at the time was the best of my images. I got it wrong.Not by a big margin, but wrong nonetheless. Moreover, I was wrong for a second reason that goes beyond making myself more familiar with the shots. Elsewhere in this blog I've proclaimed the virtues of different aspect ratios. I was a long-time user of Four Thirds cameras with their 4:3 aspect ratio. My current Canon camera outputs images at 3:2. The compact camera I use, a Panasonic LX3, offers both of those plus 16:9 and 1:1. After thirty years using a 35mm film SLR (3:2) I found the change to 4:3 interesting but not problematic. Moreover, after a while I found that I preferred it. I still do, though I find 3:2 is perfectly acceptable. The aspect ratios of 16:9 and 1:1 have their attractions for the right subject and composition. So, when I'd spent more time with my collection of shots of the potato harvester, I decided that, perhaps, one of the others was compositionally better than the one I posted. And, when I'd placed a 4:3 selection outline over the image to improve the composition further, I wondered how, after all these years, I could still make such an elementary error.
The answer to that question, I think, lies in photoblogging. Overall this blog has been something that has improved my photography considerably, giving me a focus, urgency and a widened range that has resulted in a keener eye and better shots. But a downside is that periodically my relatively high frequency of posting results in a dearth of shots and a posting date that is too close to the date I took the photograph. Hence, sometimes I haven't reflected sufficiently on the shot, quality control slips, and I post a photograph that, with hindsight, I could have bettered. So, today I post what I think is the better photograph as well as a detail showing the maker's name. Of course, that's only my point of view: yours may differ.
photograph and text (c) T. Boughen
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 50mm
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
