Best foot forward

When I was in college, I took a photography class. The first week of class Dr. Bratz told us that he could make us better photographers that very afternoon.

“Pshaw!” we said, or something along those lines.

He told us to go back to our dorms and pull out whatever photo albums we had and take something like half the photos out.

“Huh?” we said.

He told us he was serious.

‘Go and take out all but your best shots, rearrange the pictures a little better in your photo albums, and then show them to your friends without telling them what you’ve done. Come back and tell me how it goes,’ he said.

We mostly thought he was nuts but we went to our dorms and did what he asked.

My friends stared at me in amazement when I showed them the albums after my operations. “This soon, you’re already this much better as a photographer? Wow!”

They were in awe. I was sheepish. I hadn’t become one whit better at photography yet. I’d just learned the pros’ trick of not showing the third-rate stuff to anybody.

When we got back to class after this little experiment, Dr. Bratz made a point of telling us that professional photographers make lots of mistakes - that although you could get better at it if you were willing to work at it, it was a mistake to think that you’d ever get to where all your pictures were good. Aiming for perfection wasn’t going to work, and it would foul you up besides. Aiming for perfection would eventually make you afraid of reaching beyond what you knew you could do safely, he said.

Then he buckled down and started teaching us technical expertise.