mistakes

MIS-TAKES © 2012 NATE METZ

I’ve been think a lot about the ideal of perfection and making mistakes. I was sharing a story with another artist on Facebook about how I never delete any photograph that I take. Never ever. I often will flip through old files and see something new in a picture that had previously not met focus, or something that I can manipulate into some great digital art, or sometimes a little heavier post-processing can add a selling touch. All of the images above never were posted in their original state; they were the rejects. Until now.

Coincidently, I saw this video on my YouTube feed the same day:

Some key takeaways for me:
**Fear of making mistakes can cause us to never take action at all and never try.
**Everything is an opportunity to learn and to grow.

I can honestly say that some of my favorite photographs were not a result of me walking outside, turning on my camera, pushing the shutter button once, and uploading that image as a final print. Never ever. Looking at my mis-takes is precisely how I learned photography. I have not taken any coursework on photography or cameras. With the shutter, aperture, ISO, and other settings I took a lot of mis-takes to learn, and I would say that the same true for those with a degree. I believe that mis-takes aren’t even mistakes because they are exactly as intended. It’s up to us to change our perspective to see what we can learn from our rejection of something we created!