.But bad photos are part of life. Can you fix them? We will see. But when you look for the shadow, you learn to stop holding on and use bad photos in a new way.
It’s easy to get stuck.
Let yourself see why it failed.
There’s no question that if you know your edits, and have good preset actions and editing workshop you will discover perfection in many photos. But throwing out your ego for Shadow Hunting will reveal why any photo failed you.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve taken photos that were not meeting my expectations and started trying stuff. Scrolling thru presets in Filmist, or Silver, or working in Emulsion actions and I saw the image come out when I thought I had failed.
It’s when you hack the shadows.
This video is a bit of a primer and I hope you watch it before you attend my Shadow Hackers live photo workshop.
Because once you see from a Shadow Hacking perspective and learn what I teach about hunting Shadow your bad photos will become your friends.
When you have everything in place and actually use your tools you will save a lot of photos that you thought you missed as I show in the video. A mechanic can’t fix everything, but if he has his skill and his tools in place the positive outcomes will vastly increase.\
Don’t get stuck in Bad Photo Syndrome
BPS wastes your time and keeps you from creating more. With your best photos, you usually know as soon as you see the shot. You feel it was right and you open it up and it’s there.
It’s not always that way. Get creative and try things. But don’t keep on forever. Even if a photo is important, if I don’t start seeing what I wanted in a few minutes I leave it behind. At least for now.
Make the bad photo your friend and let it help you hack the shadows better.
Just admit it.
Don’t feel bad about giving up on a bad photo. Don’t cling to it. Maybe save it for later. I’ve come back to photos after a decade and found good results. But My best work, I always know.
Every bad photo you take improves you. But only if you admit it and move on. If you pretend to yourself it’s still good when really it isn’t, the lesson didn’t teach you much. It’s hard, but if be honest your frow.
I hope this helps you edit better but also get back out there and keep shooting because that is what will really make you a master. Al the way back to the painters, we learn that shadow is king and when we focus on the plan, great images are born.
Gavin Seim
