Surprising Developments

I’ve never understood the relevance of the phrase ‘life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get’. Life is unpredictable, with many unexpected twists and turns designed to make the ride more thrilling. But boxes of chocolates? Don’t they have pictures on the side showing exactly what it is you’re about to get? Or, in my case, if Mrs T has scoffed all the orange creams again, a picture of what I could have had if only I’d been a bit quicker. In days of old, when digital photography only existed in the fevered imaginations of mad scientists, ‘photography is like a box of chocolates…’ would have made more sense to me. After shooting a roll of film, I would sometimes have to wait more than a week to see the results. And, gosh, isn’t a week a long time to wait if you want to know if you got something right or wrong?

The most revolutionary aspect of digital photography is the instant feedback from the LCD screen on the back of camera, displayed after a photograph has been created. Now, it is possible to review images ‘in the field’, assess exposure and composition, and if the photograph isn’t working, delete and try again. There is none of the agonising wait of film to see what it is that you’ve created. However, and this is probably rather perverse of me, I would argue that the instant feedback from a digital camera may not be as beneficial as you would first think.

The wait for film to be processed does have one surprising benefit. It has what I would call the ‘Christmas Day effect’. There is the same sense of anticipation at what is to come. And when a photograph plainly hasn’t worked, that same feeling of deflation experienced when an exciting looking parcel turns out to be a pair of socks. Imagine though the thrill of browsing through a box of newly processed slides and discovering a photograph that is actually really rather good. A photograph that is better than anything you’ve produced previously and marks a definite step forward in your understanding about the craft of photography. I used to long for images like that, and so when just such a photograph glowed from my lightbox, my enthusiasm for photography deepened and grew. This ‘Christmas Day effect’ is a lot harder to achieve with digital. Images can be seen and picked at while the camera is still on the tripod, seconds after capture. It’s all a bit like peaking under the wrapping of your Christmas presents in November and so spoiling any element of surprise later.

So here’s a challenge for this month. If you’re out and about creating images, switch off the LCD screen on the camera and try to resist the temptation to peek at your work until it is safely stored on a computer hard-drive. Once the files are ready for viewing, sit down and relax before assessing your photos. And then when you’re ready, start to work through your images, viewing each photograph critically but fairly. You will probably find that not everything has worked quite as well as you’d hoped, but it’s fairly likely that there will be images that will take you pleasantly by surprise. And if you’re very, very lucky you may even have captured a photograph of which you can be justifiably proud, and it will feel like all your Christmases have come at once.

In a similar spirit of exploring the unknown, the next time I am offered a chocolate I shan’t consult the box. The sense of adventure will be quite liberating. And who knows, there may even be an uneaten orange cream lurking in there somewhere. One can but dream.