Back to the Future

“90% of everything is crap.” When I consider my photographic output, I think the proverb is generous; 99% of the photographs I’ve taken are crap. All photographers take many more pictures than they keep, and even fewer of those get published. On his first assignment for National Geographic, Joe McNally shot about 1200 rolls of film (or 40,000+ exposures), only to edit down to 80 frames for publication. That’s an awful lot of rejects, and it gives me pause when I consider the amount of old cruft and failed experiments I’m keeping in my file. I’d free up a lot of bits if I just deleted it all; on the other hand, I’d miss opportunities to use new skills when I acquire them.

This picture was taken in 2009, when I didn’t know much about combining multiple exposures in post. I tried to make it work and then let it sit for two years, until I had more patience. (I didn’t yet have a graphics tablet, though, which would have made the whole process ten times easier.) A little tweaking and cropping to a favorable aspect ratio produced something that, I think, captures the tranquility and sense of mystery the cloudy moonlit scene conveyed to me almost three years ago.