one image: perfect enough

They were waiting for me to set up my camera on my makeshift tripod that consisted of one bunched up, sandy sweatshirt. I was planning on joining them via the self timer function but the light was almost gone and so I was trying to fiddle with the exposure because of all that back light.

I snapped this one as a tester and it wound up being my favorite...

Camera facts:
Canon 5D Mark II
24-70 2.8 lens
ISO 800
Shutter speed 640
Aperture 2.8

What I love about it: the fact that my eye goes straight to Bean's and then travels down the line to the Kid. It is a sliver of a family moment caught on a California beach on a warm spring evening as the sun is dipping below the horizon.

What I wish I would have done better: adjust my position to get the narrow plane of focus to include Bean's face. As it is, she and the others, are just a smidge behind it.

I still love it. I am going to frame it.

My friend sent me a link to an article about a photograph that had just been auctioned off at Christie's for over three million dollars. It was the highest price every paid for a photograph in an auction.
Here's the link to an article about it. Come back and tell me what you think. It's nothing I would ever take, put in frame, or hang on my wall. :) But someone liked it enough to fork out millions for it.

Here is what I know for sure:
Some things require perfection, like brain surgery, rocket launches, and the building of an atomic bomb. Anything less than perfection would be disaster.
But, if you love a photograph that you have taken, it is perfect enough. Even if your photos are not published, bought, or auctioned off.

Zach Arias, a well known photographer, once said, that you may be one of the top ten photographers in the world and no one even knows it. In other words, the perfection standard by which someone becomes a "top ten" photographer is left up to the subjective eye of those who create those "top ten" lists. Throw in a good amount of exposure, marketing, and luck and that will up your chances at making it to the top as well...and then one day maybe being fought over in an auction.

I say, passionately create like you already are one of those undiscovered top ten, and you will be perfect enough.