last night ...

I did something unusual, I opened the messenger and I met some friends there. One of them paid me a compliment, a really special one. After seening this photograph, she told me I'm the Avedon from the Canaries (Canary Islands) ... I wish!

The thing is that friends are rarely impartial or objective. Some of them are, of course; even sometimes they are too impartial. That is good, though. Listening to those impartial friends I keep in touch with reality. Probably the best example is Lalo (webpage, blog). He is the kind of person who would never lie to you about what he thinks of a picture. 

On the other hand, thanks to those ones who told me I was good at taking photographs I started taking photography as a serious option, a real one. I couldn't stop taking pictures, I started taking classes and, for a while, I even joined a local photo club. There something happened that I didn't understand at that point. They asked me what I liked most of photography. Portraits was my answer and they started laughing. They told me taking a good portrait wasn't that easy. I didn't get offended but I didn't share their opinion ... They were so right!

Certainly I'm not an Avedon, I'm not gifted. I have to work hard to get a good portrait. Good portrait? I still wonder how to know when a portrait is good and when it's not. So, I use a trick to discard the bad ones and keep the not-so-bad ones. Photographers used to hang their prints up outside the darkroom to get bored of them. That is it, time is the clue and the trick.

I have adapted that trick as I mainly - but not only - shoot digitally. I usually set my favorite photo as the wall paper in my computer. I spend a lot of time looking at it, a lot of time. I could say it is almost an obsession. The problem is that sometimes I get lost in the details and can't see the whole image. In those cases there is nothing better than stepping back.

Now, I'm putting my trick into practice with this very last portrait I took few days ago there in the Canary Islands. Although I like her expression - you couldn't imagine how difficult it was to get her relaxed -, I'm not that sure about the background. It's too busy in the most important area of the photo, by her head. So, I´m not sure if her expression outweighs my disappointment with the background. In a couple of weeks the balance will tell me what was heavier.