It doesn’t have to be perfect in order to be beautiful.
Not to say every imperfection is beautiful, just that…
- …imperfections do not necessarily detract from a thing’s beauty. Or a person’s.
- …sometimes, in fact, imperfection might be intrinsic to beauty.
For me, the ideal photography subject, scene, or vignette is discovered, not created. I avoid arranging or placing things because I prefer observing over staging. It is not a strict rule, I’m not making a philosophical point into a constraint. Still, I will seek the right angle, elevation, and distance to convey what I see, while rarely moving a blade of grass. Play it as it lies, I say. Mostly.
Plumeria Lifecycle
The lifecycle of a plumeria blossom is captured in a single, unstaged photograph. Lying in lush grass, every phase of the legendary flower is arranged like a message written in beauty.
I am a bit more open-minded when it comes to so-called airbrushing. Photoshopping, to verb a trademark. The imagery here often aims to convey a certain view, experience, or impression. A blemish on the bloom, a spot on the pavement? Mostly irrelevant. Sometimes they even help make an image what it is. If we feel they distract, we might do something about it, while rather strictly avoiding canned filters.
Imperfection is Human/e
A maintenance worker has been lax. An unattended gate is open to trespassers. There is a kind of persistent pleasure in this, just as youth found joy there amid the geometry.
In short, we use digital tools not to falsify, but to underscore the experience and, often simply, to make a pleasing effect when hung in today’s home, retail, and corporate environments. We think it is pretty clear when the work crosses into compositions and dreamscapes, and that sometimes the veil between our worlds — and even between each other — is diaphanous, indeed.
I love this piece on my office wall. Makes me happy every time I see it.