Flawed Perfection | Does It Have to Mean Something?

by on November 7, 2017

There is perfection. Trial and error. Downright rubbish. Then there are the moments where everything technical is so far out the window it isn’t within reach, but still an image needed to be made because a story needed to be told. I refer to such work as flawed perfection.

I made this image through my tears. Why? We weren’t even 12 hours after a horrible event shook our city up. Someone not known to me lost their life in the line of duty. It saddened and angered many, me included. I found myself needing to feel something that morning. Something and anything besides the despair running through my body. I needed to hold my camera because it has brought me comfort so many times before.

The Alberta sky is a wide range of emotions and personalities. One never knows what we will see when we look at up the sky. On this morning, it was no different, but yet in a way it was because the mood was split. Looking east, the rising sun was ripping through the clouds and there was so much colour and light. I turned around and looked to my west – it was quiet, moody and heavy and I wasn’t sure the sun and colours would ever catch up.

The sky was mimicking my emotions this morning; a heavy heart, anger and confusion. Yet turning around looking at both directions showed me the sun really does rise again. I remember shedding a few tears after I photographed the rising sun. I had turned back around, my old lady Canon + 70-200mm ƒ2.8 already in my hands, and banged off two frames of this scene, void of colours and light. In this moment, I didn’t care about using a tripod. I didn’t care about exposure. I didn’t care about perfection or making a great piece of art. I wanted to capture a moment that mirrored how I felt.

Does flawed perfection give this image an edge? No. Does the accompanying text make it any more artistic than a carefully planned and executed image? Hardly. Even with all its bumps and bruises, will this image resonate with someone else, unwittingly capturing the emotion of a viewer as he or she looks at this?

That’s the beauty of photography. You just never know.

Stormy skies on the Alberta prairies during a late spring early morning, Black and white fine art Alberta landscape.

 

See you in the field!


Sidney

Photographer. Podcaster on hiatus. Edmonton Oilers lovah. Cinematic Star Wars fan. Fond of wildlife conservation, animal rescue orgs, and all things Johnny Cash. Gen X. 

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