Photo Thoughts from Beth Buelow | LET YOUR IMAGES BREATHE

#1: LET YOUR IMAGES BREATHE. I have the honor of moderating the “Summer of Refinement” series hosted by the Nature Photography Collective this month, and the series kicked off on Wednesday with Eric Bennett sharing his philosophy and strategies around portfolio curation.

Here’s one of my biggest take-aways: allow for some distance between when you press the shutter, when you process the image, and when (if) you share it. There’s a certain halo effect right after we take an image we’re excited about. It’s infused with emotion, with an attachment related to the circumstances, who we were with or where we were, maybe any personal significance the scene has for us.

Yes, emotion can translate into storytelling, which is part of what makes a photo compelling. And, it can cause us to be hasty in our processing. It increases the odds that we’ll look at the image the next day, week, or year later and wonder, “What was I thinking?!”  Or, if we’re concerned with presenting our images as a cohesive body of work, we might see it in that context and decide it doesn’t quite fit.

The stretch for any of us who feel that excitement and impulse to share immediately is to take a beat. Let the image breathe. Enjoy the thrill of a cool capture, and let it marinate for a bit before moving to processing. See processing as a true process - not a one and done, but an opportunity to sit with an image you care about and really bring out the best in it… to have enough emotional detachment that you can see its strengths and flaws a bit more objectively. Then let it sit some more (torture, I know… at least for me!).

And after a while—it might be a few days, weeks, or months—revisit it with fresh eyes. How does it land with you now? What do you feel when you look at it? What story does it tell now that you have some distance from the moment of creation? If you’re like me, you’ll find you might have taken the colors a bit far, or not explored alternatives such as black and white, high or low key, different crops or orientations. Sometimes I still like the original vision. But more often, I find ways to refine it that make it oh-so better. Maybe you’ll find the same thing, too.

[I mentioned during the webinar that I recently posted an image (see below) on Instagram within about 15 minutes of its capture. It was one of the last images I took in that particular outing, and since my laptop was right there, I popped in the card, pulled it up, and processed it. I knew what my vision was in the field. I loved it then, and I still love it. Might I look at this in a few weeks or months and cringe?  Perhaps. That’s why maybe I should have slowed my roll. I’m going to use this image (even though I love it) as a reminder to slow down. It’s fun to feel excited, but it’s also fun and ultimately more satisfying to process intentionally and curate thoughtfully.]

#2: KILL YOUR DARLINGS (THIS WEEKEND). Another reminder from Eric’s presentation, put in my own words: don’t “post and ghost” your portfolio images. You might have loved a particular image or series when you first decided it was portfolio-worthy, but as your skill and vision evolves and refines, that love might shift to “meh.” You won’t see that if you don’t make a habit of revisiting your collections on a regular basis… every 4-6 months, perhaps? Or better yet, make your first visitation this weekend!

Make a portfolio review session appointment with yourself, and click through your galleries with the eyes of someone unfamiliar with your work. Try to detach as much as possible from your emotional connection (which is easier if you’ve been practicing FPT #1 above). Which ones still hold up? Which don’t fit anymore?

It can be challenging to remove images that we initially had a big investment in. When editing a manuscript, authors are often encouraged to “kill your darlings”… to be brutal about cutting words, phrases, or ideas if they don’t move the story forward, no matter how proud or attached the writer is to their magnificent prose.

The same can be said of our portfolios. If an image doesn’t add to your message, it detracts. It dilutes. Feel appreciation and gratitude for how your standards, tastes, and skills have evolved, then let it go. Less is more. Make every image count.