Quotes of the day:
‘When you’re experimenting you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, and you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion.’ — Fred Astaire
“The biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.” – Charles F. Kettering
Fern Macro
Experimenting is an important way to learn. With my 40 day photography challenge, I find that my personal commitment to make at least 25 photos inside my house each day challenges me to try new things and look with new eyes every day. It is freeing to make “throw-away” photos without any expectations. My photography challenge is giving me the freedom to fail again and again. As I experiment with new techniques and ideas I learn and discover.
I bought a set of 3 extension tubes that allow extreme closeups with any lens. Even though I’ve had them for several years I’ve used them only a couple of times. It’s a bit of a hassle to add the extension tube between the lens and camera. And getting the focus right on those extreme closeups is very challenging. There is just no room for error using the extension tube. At this close range, if the focus is off, it screams out at you. Out of a series of photos I took using the extension tube, the one below was the sharpest I got. It still looks a bit out of focus to me. I need more practice, more patience, more experimentation.
Fern Closeup Taken with Extension Tube
I remember when I first started making photos of flowers. It is much more difficult to create beautiful flower photos than I ever imagined. I’ve taken thousands of flower photos. And most of them are not worth printing or saving. If I get 1 or 2 good photos out of 250 shots I’m happy. But the more I make photographs, the higher my percentage of keepers or interesting photos is.
When I look back through my photographs I can see improvement and growth in my work. It’s valuable to look back and see what I’ve learned. Seeing how I have learned and grown helps me be patient with the shortcomings I still see in my work.
I look at failure as a good thing…
It means I am pushing up against my limits, I’m trying new things, I’m learning and growing. Here are some of my recent failures:
Playing with vertical movement
I’ve been playing with camera movement
Another movement experiment
Glass Bird Abstract Using Camera Movement and Slow Shutter Speed
And stillness with shallow depth of field
Red and green
And with light and focus and rain on leaves outside the window
Light Study
Raindrops on iron railing
Experimenting with everything out of focus
Leaf shapes in the rain
What have you been exploring and playing with in your life? What new learning and growth is waiting for you to give yourself permission to fail?
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