“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.” Salvador Dali
I was sharing with a friend photos from Bali. He surprised me and said the pictures were too perfect ! LoL
Are these photos too perfect?
Everyday beauty, Common offering of flowers in Bali
Sunrise and fishing
Sunset
Rice paddies and mountains
I would argue that they are not too perfect, but rather their imperfections are not as glaring as the typical travel point and shoot pics. No, not too perfect.
Let’s look at each of these photos and see what might have been done better.
The bowl of flower petals, gorgeous bowls made every morning. In the photo the upper rim of the bowl is slightly out of focus. The red was more vivid than the photo. And there is a glare reflection in the center of the bowl. If I had been using a polarizer, the the colors would be better. A tripod and greater depth of field would have helped the upper rim. No not too perfect
Looking at the sunrise photo, a nice photo, one of the best from the trip. My timing was slightly off, the boat needs to be slightly more to the left. But worse, is that the horizon is not level. I should have caught that imperfection in post processing. Again, if I had had a polarize on the colors would have been more vivid. No, not too perfect.
The sunset photo although eye catching has many goofs that the trained eye will notice. First are the awful spots, worse than zits on a face, on a face you don’t get a lot of choice, in a photo you do. Also the horizon isn’t level. But there is another problem with this photo over on the left edge, notice the softness in the water? Our rooms were thankfully air conditioned to about 70 with much of the humidity remove. Outside at 90 to 100 and 75% humidity was a different story. The issue was, taking the camera from the cold room outside promptly caused LOTS of condensation on the lens. This needed to be carefully wiped away to take a shot until the camera warmed up and it was good for about 10 seconds. Again, a polarizer would have made the colors more vivid still. No not too perfect.
The water temple is nice, but notice the lens flare above the fountain? Taking time, with extra shading from a hat would have prevented the lens flare.
The rice paddy with mountains; see the glare in the water? That would have disappeared with a polarizer, and the polarizer would have made the sky darker more contrasty.
Conclusion, no not too perfect. However, there are several vastly more important lessons to be gleamed here. There isn’t really perfection, it is a journey as we become more perceptive to nuances. There is a prayer that I love that speaks to learning to live with imperfections. “God, I humbly ask you to remove all of my shortcomings that get in the way of me being of service to you” notice not all the shortcomings, some of the ‘shortcoming’ might just be needed even though we may not like them. Photos like life are not too perfect, they are perfect they way they are.