My first time photographing Chinook Pass wildflowers, I used an equiv. 24 mm lens and f/22 (or smaller). For a long time I couldn't figure out why the photos disappointed me so much

Once I started isolating the composition to one or a few + used more shallow dof, I was much happier.

Here is your delicate beauty straightened (whether perception or reality, the slope in the background distracted me), with slight vignette from a Chromebook app.

I've read this fascinating article twice now and will read it again. It seems he is pressing us to get out of our ruts and grow, to simultaneously understand and break the "rules" and create something unique and totally our own.That resonates with me as it may with other hopeless experimenters, who are often called all kinds of names, but "dumb" may be one of the nicer ones.

Though I've got many pictures I'm reasonably satisfied with, The most satisfying work I've ever put together is my dam bird project. Part of what holds me in it is that it is, as far as I can tell, wholly mine. I never saw anything I could have copied, and there are no ebook guides to follow about how to shoot the Cubist's Aviary as one friend has dubbed it.

So yes to unorthodox lighting, unacceptable poses, intentional camera movement, abstracts, creative processing, and many other experiments that could lead to our new styles and creations. (I may return to this to add an image later).