There is a popular saying “when you fall off a horse ten times, all that matters is getting on that horse eleventh time”. The message being, if at first you don’t succeed, don’t give up. Try again.
The question is when it becomes “enough is enough”. Every time you fall off the horse, it hurts. The fall is not without pain and suffering. It is both physical and emotional pain. The physical pain can be treated with reasonable certainty. The emotional pain will certainly grind one down till the joy of getting back is completely replaced with frustration and angst.
While I am all for getting up the eleventh time or whatever the number is, I am also pondering about the fatigue induced by such trials. Will this fatigue cause one to “throw the baby with the bathwater?” That is a question I was pondering and see if I can find a satisfactory answer.
Take the image below for example. I submitted it to three different competitions. I want to put it out there.
For a long time, I was scared, nay hiding, because I felt I was not good enough. Then I decided to participate in these competitions. I thought it will a be “good scare”, from which I can learn to grow. The format of all these competitions I participated, do not have any room for narrative or for submitter to provide the backstory. Only opportunity I had was to come up with the title. So my title was “Sunset at Furnace Creek, Death Valley”.
Feedback from one judge is – “I don’t get it. There is no furnace and there is no creek”. The judge completely oblivious to the fact that this photo was taken at Mesquite Dunes, near a place called Furnace Creek in Death Valley. So, I was dinged for presentation (title was misleading).
Another judge in another competition mentioned that the post processing seems incomplete. Why is it incomplete? The judge expected the leeward side (shadow) dune to be black because there is no light. He said the submission would have scored enough points to make the cut had shadow been black. Irony is that I took great pains to keep it as it is (slightly greenish). In my vision, Sun is shining from the right to left of the image, and at least at the top portion of the shadow side, the golden sand assumed a greenish tint because the light doesn’t fall off abruptly.
In another competition, the judge felt the image is over sharpened. Again, the backstory is that the dynamic range of the scene is far wider than my camera could handle, so I had to do bracketing. In this case it was 9 images that went into making the final result. Naturally, the HDR software was able to bring about lot more tonal range (shades of grey and details) than a single image would have been able to capture, and the resultant image would have to be sharpened to nth degree to get the shadow details. She was not aware of the fact that it was an HDR image.
The one thing that is in common is either me or my image or both. As much as I had an explanation for each of the feedbacks I received, It is still me. I know in these competitions, it is what a judge thinks that matters, and nothing else. As much as these are judged as standalone images, at least in these three competitions that I participated, there is an internal bias of judges that is difficult to turn off or other submissions influencing the judges perhaps subconsciously.
I am also aware that this image is one of my good ones, or I would not have submitted. I kind of felt a little bit discouraged and am really thinking twice about my next competition. The (albeit self-induced) conundrum is that do I select images that I think will potentially get positive feedback from judges or should I pursue my vision and keep at it. In either case, do I have enough emotional stamina to sustain this pelting? I know these are not life altering events. I always thought that it is the pebbles in the shoe that need to be taken care of, before charging that mountain. What if the pebbles are so many that it blisters your soul (pun intended)? I couldn’t believe that recently I went almost a week without either taking pictures or post processing them. Fortunately, that didn’t last long. It certainly made me think, and to write this article.
I read somewhere that the most difficult person to walk away from is the one who you assumed to be. What if the assumptions I made about me are inflated? The vacillation between self-confidence and self-doubt. Will it wear off or wear me out?
