The Photos You Miss
At the end of Summer, my family and I went down to the Cornwall coast. I love it down there, and by the time one of these holidays come around I am desperate for a week of living by the coast. The rest of the year when I am very inland and not near the coast line, I look forward to the next opportunity to head to the beach.
I used to take all kinds of cameras and lenses to give me every focal length I might need whilst away from home, however what I found was that I would tend to use the same lens, and most of the time that would be a prime, or I would just reach for my Fujifilm X100VI. So when packing this year, I took my Fujifilm XH2S, the Fujifilm XF 33mm f1.4 and the Fujifilm 23mm f1.4. One body, two lenses.
I think that because I look forward to this valuable time, I put pressure on myself to get all the shots I’ve subconsciously decided I want to get, and because of that I put a lot of pressure on myself.
One particular morning I went out with my family and the dog to do some rock pooling before the tide got too high. I took a decent amount of photos, and when there was a bit of time later in the day, I loaded them on to my computer to take a look at what I had got. I was a little disappointed with most of the shots. I had missed some of the shots I had tried to get for one reason or another, and the rest did not live up to what I had imagined them to be when I took them, therefore I registered this photo session as a bit of a failure. I processed the photos anyway, and chose the ones I liked most, edited them, and then forgot about it.
Some time has passed since I took those photos, and I’m back home now. I was looking through the same set of photos, and my perspective on them has completely changed. I find this happens quite a lot. I like many of my photos a lot more after some time has passed since I took them. Sometimes even after the season has changed. Winter photos look better in Spring or Summer.
I think one factor that helps is that not a lot of time needs to pass before I forgot what I was trying to do, and so I am less focussed on the shots I didn’t get - simply because I can not remember what I was trying to get. Instead I am presented with a selection photos I did get at a time and place that I can never return to. I just have the memories and the photos.
For the record, here are a selection of the photos I got that morning that I am happy with. No award winners, but that’s not the aim of the game for me.
