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"Darling images" that do not always hold up
This is an interesting phenomena. On a screen, I love many different kind of photos. But when i see them in print - it occurs to me, that many don't hold up. They might be "nice" and everything - but nothing more. It is like a psychological eye captures more when seeing things physically (and see that something is missing)
What I mean by that is, that a "great photo", might not be so great after all, once you see it physically printed on a sheep of photo paper. That the "darling" is just a mere photo - one of many, which do not stick out of the crowd.
Which is a bit sad when you think about it. And I wonder if the expression in Photography "Kill your darling's" has something to do with it. Trying to puncture you mind of thinking that you images are so great - but aren't really so great. It is almost as if photos on a large display look better - or give the illusion of being more, than they are once you see them in print ?
I don't know. But it seems to me, there is at least something to it.
Seeing photos on prints vs on screen, are a bit different. Some images simply don't hold up, or are not really that interesting, once you see them in print. Albeit - some images actually look more interesting in print, compared to watching them on a display. That too happens, albeit not as often.
In order to grow
"Kill your darling's" is a metaphor, in order to remind the photographer of not to overestimate his or her creations. Especially during the first years.
I remember very well, that within my own bubble black in 1987, that the relative few photos i had made in the beginning - I tend to overestimate my photos / prints / slides. It felt as if i couldn't penetrate a certain threshold in the quality of my images. So, in the lack of actually having good photos, i overestimated my "darling" photos, by keeping them dear. But in the eyes of others... well, they weren't that special, really.
It took quite a while to penetrate my limitations in my photography back then; both the images i took, but also the prints i made in the darkroom (which is another chapter, requiring skills fine-tune). My prints tended to be a bit darker than I'd like to. Which sometimes killed off a good photo, because I had not fully understood the "airy feeling" of more open shadows in Black & white motives. So, i tended to make too "sooty" images in the darkroom.
Plus that a fiberpaper (Baryt) black& white print gets darker when it is dry - compared to when it is still wet ! Also the light in which you judge the print, plays a roll. If you light is too bright when you look at it - than the final print will be darker under normal light conditions.
Also: the highlight areas are more gray when dry - pulling down the overall quality of the darkroom print, when the shadows also are too "sooty". So, there is a lot more to dark room print work, believe me !
The illusionary Instagram Photo World of Today
Compare today's photo world: All that gloss such as Instagram. (Not to mention all that self-importance which at times makes me wanna barf).
It is so frikkin easy to make smaller images look good, cool and everything else. But try to do that in final, physical photo prints - and most of them will fail as such. The digital world seem to be... how shall I put it... make everything FAR MORE GLOSSY, than it really is. It also seem to play tricks with your minds...
Yeah, things can look awesome on a screen. In essence however, it seems to be more illusion than it is not. A mind tinkering energy seem to be going on, i suspect. |
