When I was in London for the Meet the iPhone Photographer event back in April, one of the questions put to me by an audience member was if I could reshoot a photograph which one would it be? My immediate response was that I did not know; it wasn’t something I spent time thinking about. But with a little time to gather my thoughts I realised that I would revisit every shot and I doubt if I would want to replicate anything in the process. Every photograph is a small step in the learning how to become a better photographer.
Do photographs change over time? Do you miss something in a shot when looking at it the first time around? I am not so sure. But with time we do see things differently. Often photographs will sit overlooked in my iPhoto library (I use this for storing – Lightroom for processing) once I have selected the handful I want to work with for processing. Time will pass and often by chance I will open up the folder and it never ceases to surprise me how images I had glossed over now get my attention. What is that happens?
Over the next couple of months I have set myself objectives in things I want to get done. One of these is to get order into the way I store and categorise my images. It is chaotic at the moment. So much so, that in May I lost over a thousand images when I inadvertently deleted a desktop folder connected to Lightroom. The lesson has been learned.
Over the next number of weeks I will be going back over old folders, pulling out old, overlooked images. Should be fun. Should be informative. I know it will get me back into the groove of that imitate – assimilate – innovate cycle.
Here is an image taken in March. The guy in the image is Michael Kistler. The location is up on Richmond Hill in Cork. The view is Cork’s northside. The church steeples can be made out – but not sufficiently. And that is good – because it obliges me to get back up there and shoot again. All part of the learning process.
