Don’t shoot Johnny-5, he’s alive!

hi.  Sorry it’s been a while.  I’ve been in scan country, spending all my free time scanning.  Not as fun as I remembered.  Anyrate, here are two new shots…

I once had a great professor tell me that in order for a photographer to make a strong edit, sometimes you have to kill your babies.   This is probably some of the best advice all photographers should take.  Photographers should never make edits themselves- they’re too close the work which makes it hard to get rid of mediocre pictures and just stick to the great ones.  Photographers have to learn to kill the pictures they love, and leave them out, for pictures that are stronger and more cohesive with the rest of the work  you’re showing.  You can have your favorites, sure, just keep them out of the edit unless they’re good enough.

I had to start thinking about all this again as I’m starting to re-edit my book to start sending out.  I’m nervous, and I keep putting it off, but the sooner I get it done, the sooner I can either start facing rejection, or getting jobs.  Hopefully the latter.  I’m also facing another problem with the direction my book should take.  It’s the whole fine art versus editorial/commercial conundrum, and well, I don’t know, I’m stuck.  This is where I need a strong edit.  I’m sure theres a way I can mix both, but I’m still working on it.  I’ll post my final edit, or edits in between, and you can feel free to write and let me know what you think.  Just remember, stab in the front…

Here’s a great article I was reading earlier today on Exposure Compensation about portfolio editing.

Also one of my favourites, A Photo Editor, was talking about how everyone takes bad photos:

Yes it’s true. Everyone. All the top editorial photographers take bad photos.
They just don’t show it to me. Ever.

This really stuck for me.  Read the rest here.