Re: [Leica] RE: Eric's site

[ted grant <75501.3002@compuserve.com>]

Eric wrote:

<<<<I know that there are pictures on my web site that mean a lot more to
me than they do to others.>>>>>>

Eric,

It will always be that way!!!!!!!  We, within ourselves as photographers
select the photographs we most empathize with, it is only human nature!

In many cases we are our own worst editors, even though we think we know
our work better than anyone else on earth. :)  Sometimes (many):), I have
been totally shattered by an editor or learned photographic person
selecting an image I had passed over, "because in my opinion it didn't 
rate"  to what I thought "showed me at my best!" :) 

If there is anything more humiliating for me, is to receive an
uncomplimentary comment about a photograph I thought I had knocked my butt
off in getting and it was the "world's greatest!" :) Not too often! :)

Whew! And here I'm thinking, "Damn I'm good!" Only to have someone without
any emotion or physical attachment to the picture telling me , "well I
think it sucks!" :) And when they say that and you look again in relation
to their critique to see how they see it, then decide they are right!OOPS! 
  
That's when you begin to learn that you're not the greatest editor of your
work after all! 
 
Particularly when they look at all the slides or B&W contact sheets and
select one image and they say, "Now this is what your talent, emotion and
feelings are all about! This shot makes you look like the "King of the
Castle with a camera!" :)

Now it's a double "whew!" Am I that good? And if I am, how come I didn't
see it when I looked at the contacts or edited the slides? 

We're just too close mon ami! :)

The funny thing is, you, me and other shooters would have had to see it in
the first place to motivate us to "shoot it!" So even though we may be
"lousy editors," it is more important that we see it in the first place and
record it!  If we are not motivated through our eyes and feelings, it
doesn't matter how bad an editor we are! :) It must be there in the first
place for someone to find. 

Take heart my friend, we cannot be judged by one picture alone! It takes a
positive track record of recorded images before we are recognized as  good,
bad or ugly! :) And only then, can we be justly critiqued in relation to
where we fit in the real world of happy snapping! :)

ted