Mistakes

Cornflake

An abstract.



Originally, it wasn't meant as an abstract. I was photographing a cactus in bloom and accidentally tripped the cable release as I moved the tripod and camera. More than once I've found such mistake shots interesting and worked them up. This one got metamorphosed in Color Efex Pro with some of the filters I don't usually use.

Does anyone else have mistake shots they kind of like? Feel free to post them here.

torags

Hey.... that looks like fireworks in high wind with a long exposure..

http://ragspix.smugmug.com/Events/1005-Kaboom-Fireworks/DSC5639/876231532_HnLss-XL-1.jpg

Eia

If my mistakes were as pretty as this I would have abstracts all over my house!

Cornflake

Thanks for the comments!

RyanS

Random results can often lead to long term projects, creative direction, and entirely new styles. There has been some recent work published in LensWork along that same vein. Not with results that look like this, but accidental images that led to multi-year projects exploring the technical and creative expression. Right now this image stands by itself quite well. My question for Don: Are you going to do more?

Cornflake

RyanS wrote: »

My question for Don: Are you going to do more?

I'll certainly be making more mistakes. And sometimes finding them interesting and working them up.

I take a fair number of purposefully "wrong" shots...slow handheld shots while moving the camera, long exposures while zooming the lens, etc. But those aren't truly random. I'm not sure how I'd go about taking truly random images.

Moving Pictures

Cornflake wrote: »

I'm not sure how I'd go about taking truly random images.

Give your camera to a four-year-old.

rbt

I think the shot is great. I like the pastel colors and the 3 dimensional feel.

Dogdots

What a great mistake Do it again

I just finished editing a 'mistake', but it's certainly not as good as this.

Cornflake

rbt, Mary, thanks very much for the comments. It makes you wonder when a mistake is better than the correct photo you took of the same subject.

DaddyO

I was thinking fireworks as well. Looks so much like em. Complete with smoke and such at first glance.
Result works decent as an abstract.

I have been playing with various shapes, colors and blur with my camera phone. Kinda interesting results occur by rapid rotations or other erractic motions of the phones camera. Tried it with my SLR but was concerned about the cameras health. Even had it shut off by itself when I "shook" it apparently too much. That was unsettling :nono

I don't have a sorta similar result like yours as a mistake that I can put my hands on right now but there was this one that came out very unexpected / unintentional that was, I thought, worth exploring. I also thought about attempting something like it again to see if I could actually pull off something worth looking at. I am fairly certain I could not get this close on purpose if I tried and I have thought about it several times to try but ultamitly thought no way I get as decent. Maybe I need to stop thinking that way and just give it a go

dave6253

Ok Cornflake. I'll play along. Most of my shots could be classified as mistakes anyway, but there are 2 that even I was able to recognize as such.


1. Loose Tripod

It was -20 degrees F when I was shooting this long exposure of the Hermosa Cliffs along the Million Dollar Highway north of Durango, Colorado. During the exposure the loose tripod caused the camera to slowly tilt. Not sure if I just didn't tighten it properly or if the extreme cold had something to do with it.



2. Psychedelic Canyon

Photomatix Pro tried it's best to merge 4 exposures, even though one didn't belong in this group of brackets. I realized my mistake, but couldn't bring myself to destroy this one, even though it's icky. I couldn't create this again if I tried.

Richard

OK, so here's one I posted a long time ago, when I had no idea how to use flash properly:

Cornflake

DaddyO, Dave, Richard, these are all very interesting. I've also combined mismatched images in Photomatix, sometimes with intriguing results.