Generally speaking, I do at least manage to get the basics right. No intruding digits over the front of the lens, no sudden jolt to the left or right during the exposure - that sort of thing. Getting the shot acceptably sharp is also usually something that comes without too much of a struggle. Usually.
But then there are those moments when things go wrong - and just now and again, the blip stays hidden on the card until that big screen moment. The most distressing of these incidents happened just outside Husavik, in the north of Iceland. After a whale watching escapade, we stopped just outside of town when we spotted a splendid lone house set against a series of pastel blue layers and a snow capped mountain range. A quick set of handheld shots later and we were on our way south, with what I thought might be one of the defining and more unusual images of the entire trip. It would have been if I hadn’t made such a dog’s dinner of things while I was taking my shots, but it was only when I arrived home a few days later that I realised they were all blurred. And I don’t go to Husavik every day either. It’s a long way to the sixty-sixth parallel from West Cornwall you know.
Some years later, another shot that I liked fell victim to a similar spell of technical collapse. This time, the sweeping tide on the beach at El Cotillo may have been to blame. Perhaps an incoming wave caught the legs of the tripod and nudged the camera - just enough to drag the shot, but not so much that I could see it on the back of the camera. It wasn’t one of those once in a lifetime opportunities like the Husavik horror show, and by the time I could see the blur on a big enough screen to realise its existence, we’d already booked to go again the following winter. But even so, it was a shot I’d have shared here sooner if I’d got it right in the first place. With the glowing sunset light surrounding the submarine shaped rock and bouncing all over the wet sand, it was the kind of image I can’t help but get sucked into, hook, line and neutral density filter every time.
But even the soft edges of the submarine hadn’t consigned the raw file to the dustbin. A year later, it was still there in the folder. A year later, the good people in charge of the AI sharpening software I purchased over three years ago made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. The original purchase had come with just one year of free updates, following which I was invited to part with hard cash to keep the refreshes coming. At the time, I wasn’t persuaded, and so the software remained on my PC, frozen in time like Miss Havisham in her wedding dress, still very occasionally employed, but less and less often as the core armoury in Lightroom and Photoshop went from strength to strength. By the start of the new year, I wasn’t using my Topaz software at all - and then they emailed me a seventy-two dollar discount code with no minimum order value. Suddenly a further year of upgrades was cheaper than a reasonably priced lunchtime nosh up - it was a no brainer as far as I was concerned,
And in the two year hiatus, the denoise and sharpening utility suites had come on very nicely indeed. Even though Lightroom now has a game changing denoise function, this one still has its place when you’ve made a gazillion adjustment layers in Photoshop, but it’s the sharpening software that has really tickled my bell. Suddenly, there was hope for the submarine, and the Husavik house, which also still existed in the raw.
Of course it would have been better if I’d got it right in camera, and of course there are those who sniff at this sort of thing. It’s not absolutely perfect, but I think the robots in my PC have done a pretty decent job of covering up my indiscretions. There’s a fair argument that says “you messed it up. Move on, learn your lessons and do it right the next time,” but we all have these blips from time to time. And of course we all know they’re going to take over one day - which might be for the best, considering how well the human race is managing its own affairs at the moment - but in the meantime, it seems a good thing to me that these occasional lapses can be rescued.
If you saw “Cappuccino Flow” recently, you’ll know I returned to the scene a few weeks ago. But there was no glow and the submarine was fully submerged. I came away with a very different, but equally pleasing result. And I didn’t need it to be rescued by the robots either. Good to have them there though - because I’m bound to do it again at some point aren’t I?
"Cappuccino Flow" www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/53601416734/in/datepo...
"North" www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/49713396417/in/album-...
