What is failure?
Why we need to look closer at our "mistakes" before throwing them away.
I mentioned in my article The Shaking Dark about how the nervousness of capturing an image can, in my case, potentially ruin it. That the image I imagined in my mind in that split second is not what appears on the computer when I get the scans back, because invariably I’ve forgotten to breath.
But as Garry Winogrand once said “Great photography is always on the edge of failure.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blowing my own trumpet here. I’m simply asking if sometimes are we way too hard on ourselves? Are we too driven by the approval of others, usually complete strangers, to actually see that pushing the boundaries of what a frame can hold can mean images risk looking messy, off-balance, or chaotic, which as Winogrand states, “captures life's energy exactly as it unfolds.”?
Thinking like this makes me look at my images in a completely different way. What was the reason I thought that shot was worth taking?
Using film makes you slow down and consider a little more than digital, but it can sometimes mean you miss the shot you felt was “it” and are disappointed by the results. But should you look at that “mistake” and think, well, actually it’s captured something about life I didn’t even realise was there. Prioritising raw truth over technical perfection. In street photography a blurry or unexposed image is not necessarily a mistake, it is often the only way to capture an honest, fleeting moment.
This week I’m waiting for more scans to come back, one from a newly taken roll of film and others from negatives I’ve hidden away for over a decade. When they come through I want to open them and not, as usual, feel the doubt of failure and dash through them, but consider each and every one just a little bit more closely.
They say if you get one keeper image from 4 to 5 rolls of film then you’re doing well. Perhaps I could find that one keeper in the rolls in the fridge or the folders of negatives I still have unscanned in the drawer. You never know.