About 90% of what I shoot ends up on a portable hard drive never to be seen again – generally not even by me. I shoot something/someone, take what I need, upload some stuff on here but ultimately move on to the next project. I rarely print anything and rarely review anything. I recently discovered that this needs to change.
Yesterday I posted some new pics of Stacey that we had previously discounted as ‘not good enough’ or ‘not right’ which were originally shot at one of our Studio Day events last year. Clearly, they’re awesome images and whilst they didn’t quite fit the project back then it’s a bit unfair to keep them in storage, all forgotten about.
The other reason for looking back through your archives is for self study – to see how your style is developing, or to see how much you’ve improved. My PhotoShop skills have been enhanced over the last year or so and looking back through some of my earlier images at the ones I had discounted, I think I can do something interesting with now. I’ve also forced myself to play more – to be more creative, play with sliders and effects I wouldn’t normally touch, and deviate away from my “normal” processing workflow.
I guess there’s two main reasons for trying these new approaches – I heard someone on TV say the other day: “If you keep on doing what you do, you’re always get what you got” and since I want to get better, I thought I’d try something new and hopefully get something different. The other reason is the proliferation of apps like instagram which apply a ton of processing effects and cause some nice accidents. I wanted to do the same, but better.
I’m pleased I did this, and I think the results are very interesting. They certainly have a more ‘arty’ look about them. Below are a few pictures I revisited, and presented differently. I’d be interested to know what you think.
