I think it is probably a pretty good idea to chill with your old images every so often. We all love to push forward, which totally makes sense. I'm just suggesting that we make time once in a while to check in and see how our former selves are doing, is all. Of course, in order to be able to do that, we need to resist the impulse to burn all our old negatives whenever we are in a bad mood. Keep some hidden away at the bottom of an old box somewhere hard to get to. Years later, you'll be glad you did that.
And when you do go back for a peek, if you're lucky, you will find a real gem that you previously overlooked for one reason or another. Other times you'll wonder what the hell you were doing putting a star filter on your lens. That kind of thing.
Here is an image I made back in the day on a trip to South Carolina. For some reason now lost to time, I put this one in the 'maybe' folder. Was the subject matter just a little too hackneyed? Was the arrangement of the branches just a tad off? I can't recall, but now, I like the image just fine. I am okay with the composition and I'm not the least bit angry with any of the trees for not having branches organized in a certain preconceived manner.
On the other hand, here is an image that isn't working for me at the moment. It seems like it should have potential, though, and so I keep coming back to it. Damn it, it was shot on a Leica! But something just ain't right. What kind of sauce do you pour over a dried out boneless, skinless chicken breast to make it palatable?
There are actually plenty of choices, but at this stage, I confess that I have no appetite for buffet dinners, so maybe I'll just hit the delete key on this one. Rest assured, though, I have the negative squirreled away somewhere safe, so anything might happen when future me stumbles upon it.
