It Was A Good Idea

I’ve edited 176 photos in the last 15 days. That’s about 10 photo selects each day from the approximately 10,500 photos I’ve made so far this month.

I edited only two photos from the 70 photos I shot today. One is My Final Photo.

The other edit is the photo above and the only reason I edited it was for this newsletter to illustrate failure.

There were several good elements to this possibility.

The skateboarder was running over and around the sharrows in the street indicating that the roadway needs to be shared. I’d already made a few photos of him jumping around the painted marker.

The older classic creamy-colored VW arrived to anchor the composition adjacent to the sharrows. Not sure of the age but the taillights are the small ovals, so it is before 1970.

The skateboarder, although only partially in frame, injects a sense of youthful energy and rebellion riding on East College. His red sneakers are a splash of color that draws the eye. The skateboard itself, captured in a frozen tilt, seems to defy gravity and suggests a moment of pure freedom.

Getting a photo of the bug, the skateboarder, and the more modern sharrows in the same frame would possibly make for a good photo. Contrasts in travel methods gathered on a short section of a suburban street. Capturing a moment where these worlds collide, symbolizing the coexistence of different paces and phases of Westerville life.

But it didn’t work. The skateboarder is out of the frame instead of close to the VW. The light changed before the boarder could make another run and the bug drove away, slowly.

Made five exposures with the bug in the frame, all with only a portion of the boarder. The last frame, with the boarder in perfect position, in the air above the sharrows, doesn’t have the VW.

It’s not probable that this scene will repeat itself. Too many variables. A missed opportunity.

There might be less than 10,500 exposures on my hard drive if the variables always fell into perfect place.