Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been reviewing all of my old negatives from the work I did in Nova Scotia. It’s interesting how many I had forgotten about. I realized that the ones I had chosen originally for the final portfolio of images were still the ones I would have chosen again. But, I thought you might find it beneficial to see the ones that I felt were inappropriate for the final cut… my rejects.
One of the challenges with understanding what is “good work” in any artistic discipline is that we are rarely afforded the opportunity to see which works aren’t. We walk through galleries and museums with the assumption that what we are seeing is “artistic perfection.” In the critique group I lead, we look at many, many images. Honestly, most of them turn out to be rejects. But I think, for those of us still learning (and I hope I always will be) it is a gift when an artist will share their unsuccessful work as easily as the good stuff.
So here’s some of mine. I chose these to show you (and I will post more for other reasons in another entry) because I don’t think they’re bad images. They just didn’t belong with the others I had selected for my portfolio titled Displaced: Part I. That work is about needing to be accepted by a place that is unfamiliar, and trying to extract the loneliness and sadness of it.
© Lauren Henkin. All rights reserved.
The image of the horses above is one that I really, really liked actually. I had one other image in the portfolio of horses and I felt that I couldn’t have two of horses in the portfolio; it would seem repetitive. I imagined that the images would be eventually compared to each other anyway, so I had better make the decision first about which one belonged. I chose the other one, honestly, because I felt that this image was a little too close. It felt a little tight and the other had more of a graphic quality with the wire running diagonally, it felt more unique and was a result also of good timing.
© Lauren Henkin. All rights reserved.
Most of what I was trying to show in the portfolio was the feeling of abandonment, homelessness and being lost. This image was too literal a representation. There were many images that I took of houses in Nova Scotia. I still feel like the image of the white house with a clothesline in the backyard (titled “On The Line” on my website at www.laurenhenkin.com) and undergarments drying showed more of the feelings I was aiming for that this image was. It also felt a little cliche, a little overdone.
© Lauren Henkin. All rights reserved.
This is another image I argued with myself to keep. It is a beautifully printed image, lots of foggy mystery, a classic beauty. I had photographed a lot of trees in the fog, so why not keep this one? The problem is that it’s too classical for me. I’ve seen this image before. But more than being repetitive, the other images I have in the fog (especially of the pier in early morning) more uniquely enhance the message of the portfolio.
I hope seeing these are helpful in being able to evaluate your own work, a difficult task for all of us.
I so appreciate this post about a very difficult aspect of our work as artists!