Slow Photography

Do you ever look back at your old photographs ?   I l ooked over some portraits that I took ten years ag o ; they are terrible. I wonder, “Who took these.” At times the flash is over-powered. The skin tones in some are off ( I will spare you from looking at them here).     My old photos seem noisy . Some are not truly sharp. I t ell myself that I have better gear now with a better signal to noise ratio, but this is an excuse. No high - tech camera has ever helped a photographer have something to say. It seemed clear: I will never photograph anything today that looks as good as it should to me tomorrow.         There's another thing about the old photos. I was directing the subjects a lot more. Th is gave me a false sense of control. In more recent images, I am letting go of control. Better images come when I let the subject generate the photograph. I can hang back, and wait for a subjec...