Photographs...

My ex had taken nearly 3,000 photographs on his two week trip through southern Europe and yesterday downloaded them to his laptop so they could be easily looked at. He was interested in choosing the ultimate best ones and matting and framing them and hanging them on his walls at home. Because, with my artsy background, he thought I would be a good judge of which would be the ones with that "wow factor," he had me look at all of them and decide which ones I thought those would be.

 

He had taken lots of good photographs, but not all of those had that "wow factor" that hit you in the guts the moment you saw them. Some of them were merely very good, but lots of people could have taken them. Some of them looked like they could have been placed in National Geographic, but that was not my criterium. I wanted the ones that were absolutely unique and I narrowed it down to about 30 photos that I thought had special qualities of which there were nine that blew me away.

 

I had a lot of fun doing this, because I not only got to see his trip documented, but also use my talents, however limited those are, to make discriminate choices based on my instincts and knowledge. Whenever I started second guessing, I knew I was on the wrong track and dismissed the photo.

 

Photographers have to take hundreds of pictures to get that one photo that is just right, so my ex did not do too badly. I told him he should take a photography class and increase his knowledge because about a lot of things he is still in the dark. He really and truly is an amateur and he would take many more better photos if he knew more.

 

I am not claiming to be a better photographer. I just judge the outcome, and of course you can do that better when you have not taken the photos yourself. You look at them with an unprejudiced point of view.