Adventures · Inspiration

How to embrace your imperfect photos

It’s Monday morning – time to get up, rise and shine, and eat a healthy breakfast.  Wait…that was yesterday’s breakfast.  Ah, yes, yesterday…I was able to sleep in and not force myself to get up because I was running an hour late.  Ugh…I hate it when we change the clocks ahead an hour.

Such is life – one day I feel like I’m on a normal track, and the next day, I’m meandering along trying to catch up.  Those moments make me feel less like trying so hard, and more like saying, “Oh hell, just be less tough on yourself, and take time to adjust.”

This morning, my brain feels like mush, and I don’t have any exceptional photos to share either. What I’ve got to share today is pure imperfection and a bit of inspiration on how imperfection is okay to embrace.

I take a ton of pictures (shh…I tell the Mr. that I delete the bad ones…) and pick and choose the better shots to share here on my blog.  (You know, like that omelet Mr. made for breakfast yesterday.)  Sharing near perfect photos creates a handy-dandy illusion that I’m good at photography.  (Cut me some slack, I’ve heard it’s a trick the pros use, so why can’t I?)

Anyhoo…I take great shots mixed in with lots of horrible shots.  But I always find something in the not so great shots that I like enough to hang on to them for.  Those moments taught me that I still have things to learn and what not to do the next time.  Especially when it comes to capturing photos of the pets.  They move fast and adorable moments turn into imperfect moments – captured digitally for me and you to see.

But we have fun playing – their sporadic movements captivating me to continue on clicking away.  We enjoy our time together, that’s what matters most to them, and to me.

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Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. – Marilyn Monroe

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Klutziness is endearing.  I like imperfection. – Elizabeth Banks

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There is no real beauty without some slight imperfection. – James Salter

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I think every single imperfection adds to your beauty.  I’d rather be imperfect than perfect. – Sonam Kapoor

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There is beauty and humility in imperfection. – Guillermo del Toro

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It’s not about finding relevance or perfection or imperfection in objects, but it’s that you can accept yourself and then go out and accept others. – Jeff Koons

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There is a kind of beauty in imperfection. – Conrad Hall

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Perfection itself is imperfection. – Vladimir Horowitz

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All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses. – Wislawa Szymborska

And soon…the green grass will grab my attention and I’ll be outside finding small treasures in the yard that are perfect.

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How do you embrace your imperfections?  Do you enjoy the learning process?  Do you take tons of horrible pictures that you keep too?

Post inspiration brought to you today with my gratitude and thanks to Cee:

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5 thoughts on “How to embrace your imperfect photos

  1. Funny, I keep the ones that the head is blurry and everyhing else is clear too. Just something about them. At in the box is perfect!

  2. I hold onto both kinds of pictures, the good and the really bad. the blurry pictures kill me…those are the ones where the kids have the best expression. yesterday all three of us took gazillion nature photos to celebrate the coming of spring. I’ll post those soon. my 6 year old son told me that he wants to have a blog too. so to make him happy I’ll thinking about posting some of his pics. 🙂
    Have a great start to a new week! I enjoy reading your posts.

    1. I know – even if my “kids” are the “pets” at this stage, they still give me the blurry expressions. I look forward to seeing your shots from the weekend. That’s so awesome he wants his own blog! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, you have a great week too! Thank you for stopping by to read, I appreciate hearing from you, and I enjoy reading your blog too!

  3. I’m going to tell you a secret I just found out about the other week. A professional photographer told me that all photos, when they come out of a camera, are just plain jane. They ALL need to be touched up, enhanced, corrected, realigned……the works. So, don’t be so hard on yourself.
    I consider myself the most impatient photographer on the face of the earth.
    If it can’t be done in nanoseconds, I’m not doing it.
    When I went to a professional photography school, I quit within two or three sessions (and got all my money back!)
    Why? How? Because 99% of the time was spent with the students setting the ISO, the aperature, the speed?? WTF? Who has time like that? They would take a photo, look at it, adjust the settings and then do it again, and again, and again.
    I’m a technology person.
    I believe in science and the great strides the human brain has made in our recent life time.
    Sorry, but when I have to take a shot of my dog or an animal, or kids in motion, I set my camera setting to ‘action’ and click and crop away. Most come out perfect from the get go. A little enhancement, blueing of the sky, blotting out facial imperfections and I am a happy camper.
    Needless to say, my teacher hated me.
    Many of the new cameras coming out now, are internet ready and can be controlled by an iPad or an iPhone.
    Which made me realize, I already have a camera that’s controlled by my iPhone. It’s called ‘my iPhone’.
    I started taking ‘free’ iPhone lessons (starting with the iPhone 7 plus that has a dual lens). Apple keeps making free software that with a touch of a finger, I can get the same results (like those dreamy waterfall photos that I used to be so jealous of) as a professional. Without the expense. In about a second or two.
    Ditto for my YouTube videos. If I can’t make a one minute video in five minutes, I’m on to something else.
    I’m the most inpatient person on the planet, for sure!
    Software can take out the fuzziness, the out-of-focus and sharpen the roughest of edges.
    Who knew?

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