Hi F&F,
With this week’s photo challenge theme, unfocused, WordPress has asked us to tout and display what culture instills in us to understate and hide – our mistakes.
Taken while the San Francisco Symphony tuned up; this picture could use some fine tuning.
Rarely is an unfocused photograph allowed to see the light of day. As an amateur photographer, when film ruled, I would sometimes get my photos from the drugstore and pull out the unsightly shots; or I’d tear up the blurry unfocused pictures and hide the evidence of my bloopers before I shared them. It was the dirty little secret shared between the photo finisher and me.
This picture is certainly no gem.
With digital photography, I can now delete the offending shots and even execute a do over right on the spot; before anyone (the subject included) is wise to my slip up. Add to the self-editing process, image editing software, and it seems that today, we all can be, a straight out of the womb, Ansel Adams, Robert Clark, David LaChapelle and Sally Mann.
This shot of singing group En Vogue was taken at Epcot. The photo was an epic failure and not ready for the cover of Vogue.
Truthfully, I rarely tamper with the evidence. I’m willing to do the time for my crimes against the art of photography. I own my mistakes. I have shoeboxes filled with unfocused, underexposed and ill-conceived photos. I’m using up many megabytes of computer memory to store my muddled attempts to achieve art.
Just an afterthought; maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to try to photographic African dance performance.
Thanks to WordPress, I’ve been able to share some of my more successful photos. For this week’s photo challenge I’ve been given the chance to share a few of my many unfocused failures practice shots.
As Malcolm Gladwell said – “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”
Peace,
ATreeGrowsinBklyn
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atreegrowsinbklyn 
I hope you don’t mind me asking but I notice that you’re using a ‘Related Articles’ section, how did you set up please because I’ve been looking into doing something similar? 🙂
The “Related Articles” feature is available through an application called Zementa. As you write your post Zementa will suggest photos and related posts. I usually visit a few of the suggested posts to confirm viability for inclusion in my post. Click HERE to learn more about it.
Oh, thank you for sharing that, I’ll check it. 🙂
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Terrific and funny narrative for your “unfocused” shots. Enjoyed it.
~Anne
Hi Anne,
I always try to focus on the funny when I’m facing my failures. Thanks for joining me in a laugh.
Peace,
ATreeGrowsinBklyn (Adrienne)
Good job. They’re great for the challenge. 😉
Thank you. Truthfully, this wasn’t much of a challenge for me because I have such a large pool of photos from which to pull. 😉
For real? You don’t delete much of your blurred shots? I have some but tend to delete others. 😆
Hi Elizabeth,
Getting rid of photos and books are a source of some anxiety. I’m in therapy. 😉
I hope you had a beautiful Mother’s Day.
Peace,
Adrienne
Oh – I’ll take those gems anytime …. beautiful. Love your entries.
You can just put a bow on that blurred bling and I’d accept it as a gift; in a blink of an eye!! 😉
Great puns!
Thank you. I can’t resist them; even if they are often lame and fall flat; they make me giggle. 😉
My hubby and I are reading “Blink” by Gladwell together. He is very interesting! A lot of his writing has ties to art so I thought it very fitting that you used a quote by him as part of this post. 🙂
Hi Bonnie,
Mr. Gladwell is an engaging writer and speaker. I’ve read Blink and he gave a talk at an HR conference I attended. As you can imagine, the concepts in that book absolutely resonated with the audience of HR professionals.
Thanks for visiting and commenting.
Regards,
ATreeGrowsinBklyn (Adrienne)
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Thank you.
I really like the Malcolm Gladwell quote. It took me decades to figure that out, and I still can use the reinforcement!
(I’m with you on the jewels, blurred or not, focused or not, they are GEMS.;-)
It’s worthy of my Words While Wandering page, but I never got around to putting it up there. There is a lesson in that quote. I think many people should post it on the refrigerator; it’s on mine.