In this day of highly-curated, Pinterest-perfect pictures (say that 5 times fast), it can be easy to think that what we see online just happens that way on the first try. Of course, people who regularly share content via social media know that is far from the truth.
For today’s post I am going to walk through some of the pictures that didn’t make the cut for a post last week and talk through how I landed on the final one that was posted.
My family and I were invited to spend the week at a friend’s cabin. As soon as we arrived I knew it would provide a wonderful opportunity for my daily post, both for inspiration, as well as providing a lush environment to take photos of the artwork.
The first morning I was up before anyone else, went out to the back deck, and created some artwork.
SIDENOTE: It appears I have become a “morning person.” I may elaborate on that more for a future post, but I am quite sure younger me would be shocked to know that I actually enjoy getting up early and have, on occasion, woken at a crazy early time without the aid of an alarm. True story.
Once I finished the artwork, thinking the deck would create a wonderful backdrop for the photo, I snapped this picture. As you can see the railing, which is so gorgeous in-person, comes across too strong and ends up competing with the environment.
What I had hoped would tell the story of hanging out at a beautiful, well-maintained cabin, looked cramped and completely blocked the relaxing view of a lovely lake.
My next thought was that the problem with the photo was the obscured view of the lake. Since the content of the post is “life is better at the lake,” let’s be sure to show that picturesque lake in the photo. I went down to the dock to see what I could come up with. 
A lot of times when I am photographing in a space with my sketchbook I can find myself struggling with remembering my objective.
For example, I may get a great environment shot at the expense of being able to see the artwork, or sometimes take a nice photo of the artwork, but completely lose the environment.
Ideally, I want to strike a balance between clearly seeing the artwork while still framing it in an interesting environment.
Above, you can see one of the pictures that I took on the dock. After reviewing it, I thought the photo was so non-descript it wasn’t doing justice to the character of the space. While it is clearly showing the lake, it could have been taken anywhere.
Undeterred, I turned around and realized that the landscape in the yard gave more opportunity that was worth exploring. I nestled the sketchbook on some rocks and took this photo.
While there were things that I liked about the stones, it started to feel like the artwork was too difficult to read or was possibly getting lost in the space. Plus, it felt disjointed from the content of the artwork.
I stepped further into the yard to show more of the cabin and took this shot.
It was almost working, but the pole to the left was distracting and the trees on the right side were too prominent, but I liked the way the cabin complimented the phrase in the artwork.
Finally, I landed on this photo which ended up being the one posted for the day. The focus was primarily the artwork, but with just enough environment to tell a story I could elaborate on with the caption.
Not every post goes through this much of a process. Sometimes I know how I want to set up a picture and I get it on the first try or at least close to that.
However, there are days when I need to work through a process to finally get a picture that accomplishes what I am wanting. Normally, I would just delete all the photos that didn’t work and move on, but this time wondered if others may find value in seeing some of those misses or not-quite-right pictures.
Not everyone will find themselves in the position of staging artwork to share, but my hope is that in sharing what went on prior to the final post it will be an encouragement that sometimes it takes time and failure to find the best solution.
Don’t settle for something that is less than what you want or what you are capable of.
Those times that we look at what other people are doing and it seems to just flow forth without any struggle or challenge, please know that chances are there were many not-quite-right versions before the final polished shot.
Or, even in those cases where the first attempt hits the mark, that is after hours and hours of effort invested in doing the work to master a skill.
The old phrase holds true, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
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