…again, with a new Muse! Huh? What’s that? That’s that little thing some of us believe we need to inspire us to refine ourselves, and I think I’ve got a new one (she may force me to get a little darker, but who knows). Can one really start over? I’m not sure that’s possible, but it is possible to evolve. I suppose that is what I’m talking about right now. Part of that process, at least for me, was to take a bit of a break from shooting, which I’ve done pretty much for that last few weeks. Some of that break resulted from competing priorities that had… well… priority. And part of that break was because my D700 was with Nikon Service Point in Berlin for routine maintenance. While I brought her back home this week, I’ve not even had time to unholster her for a test run, and that may not happen for a few days, sadly (other priorities, remember). So where did this photograph come from, you may wonder. This is one I shot with my previous camera, the D300, partnered with the fantastic Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8.
So… back to starting over. Or, rather, as I noted earlier, evolving. It’s something I think that I’ve been doing for some time, but never realized it until I spent some time today looking back at some of my old work, and I don’t just mean my HDR work. In reviewing my older work, I’ve discovered that 90 percent of it is… crap! That’s right. Not even worth the time I spent shooting and processing it. But wait; is that really how I should look at it? I suppose if I accept that we can evolve (in our hearts, our minds and our souls), I suppose I should look at that older work as the many mistakes that led me to now; the same ones that will keep me on course. As they say, it’s the journey, not the destination! Today’s photograph is an older one that I tried to process some years back, but that I was never quite happy with. But, I’ve evolved, learning so many new things about my vision and how I can process my work in such a way that it better reflects how I “see” the world.
By the way, part of my evolutionary process has involved the introduction of music into my “workflow” (shooting and processing my work, as well as while writing my blog posts). While I was not listening to music when I shot this, I was listening to Muse’s Exogenesis: Symphony (Parts I, I and III) to process this particular piece. I think I’m pleased with what Muse helped me achieve. The lyrics for Part III of Exogenesis (included in this post below the image) informed my processing the most this time around.
A call to my Muse
Let's start over again Why can't we start it over again Just let us start it over again And we'll be good This time we'll get it, get it right... ~ Muse
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