While looking back through a fat binder full of negatives, I came to a realization: most of these photographs are bad. This was demoralizing. I must be some kind of photographic failure.
Here are hundreds of frames, I thought, and the vast majority of them are bad.
No sooner had the thought echoed through my mind when another voice interjected… Says who?
In a flash, I recognized that I had unwittingly absorbed a whole framework of judgment from The Feed.
The algorithm was winning. I had been fed the idea that certain types of photographs are the only ones worth liking, let alone making. I realized that the images coming across my Instagram feed are highly curated, and many come from professional photographers who are not only highlighting their best work, but also spending comparatively much more time and attention on their projects than I am with my own casual hobby. The images served to me through my social media feeds are professionally scanned, clean and sharp, focus and exposure are nailed every time.
I use a 15-years-old flatbed scanner in my dusty office. My photography is sporadic and often spontaneous. Reviewing my images, I noticed that many of them are snapshots. Compared to the curated content the algorithm feeds me, they felt woefully inadequate.
But are my photos a waste? Are they bad? Unconsciously, I had turned a glimpse through my photographic past into a diatribe on my own inadequacy. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
“What makes a bad photo,” I asked myself, and to my surprise, I had no ready answer.
When asked to describe the way he defined obscenity in 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously couldn’t, instead offering the assurance “I know it when I see it.” Is bad photography like that? Is there some objective classifying criteria? Light leaks? Cattywampus framing? Out of focus? Under- or over-exposure? Missed something unintended? Are bad photos bad because of what they aren’t? Or is there something inherently bad about what they are?
I decided to look again at my photographs in a new light, not in comparison to my social feed, but as fragile artifacts, contingent glimpses of things that have been in space and time.
This isn’t an argument about taste or style or even preference. Rather, it is a call to reevaluate (or better yet, revisit) those photos that you didn’t post, and that you don’t like. Those that have made you think to yourself, This is a bad photograph.
In a world that praises perfectionism, bad photographs are an opportunity to look without judgment, to see what is and what was, what became of a moment in time. To see the being of light in the world. The light became a photograph and dwelt among us. How could such a mystery be bad?
The fragile contingency of this proposition is particularly evident in film photography. I like to shoot, process, and scan my own black-and-white film, and I even bulk roll film myself, not in the least because this is the cheapest way to do it.
As a school teacher, film photography is a hobby I’ve been fortunate to be able to sustain, especially in this economy. Looking back at those rolls, I saw scratches, missed focus, fog, abundant imperfections. I’ll admit, my developing habits can vary somewhere between unfussy and careless. But was this reason for condemnation? Were these images ruined? I’ve got to give myself some grace. I’m learning, and lord knows I’m not perfect. Why should I expect every photograph on a roll to be? In looking at what I had done rather than wishing that these images were different, I’ve been able to see tremendous value that I had previously taken for granted.
Yes, bad photographs help us think about what we might do different or “better” next time, but this isn’t their only value. Consider this as an invitation to move beyond thinking in terms of utility when it comes to bad photographs. A call to a revaluation of our photographic values. Bad photographs are an opportunity to see who we are, and who we have been, and they shouldn’t simply drive us to obsessing over who we wish we were. Every bad photograph reflects a moment, an instant, the way that light is in the world. And their very existence is something to celebrate.
Gary Winogrand said, “I take pictures to see what the world looks like in a photograph.”
Bad photographs give us a glimpse of the world as it was and is, imperfections and all. Viewed this way, the artifice of film can take on metaphoric significance, amplifying the fragile contingency of the everyday. A film photograph is light, chemistry, darkness, waiting, silence, existence. How could a string of code interacting with other strings of code convince me that this fragile magic, this tenuous mystery, could be bad?
Someone else, I’m not sure who, said that our entire life consists of what we give our attention to. Even bad photographs require our attention at least twice; once when they are made, and again when we see them for the first time. We’ve got to cock the shutter, press the button, pop the canister in the dark bag and wind the reel by feel. Mix the chemicals, wait, agitate, rinse, and dry, and then, out comes the magic.
I want to praise bad photographs simply because they exist. Let’s be gentle with ourselves, and wonder at what we have made. Let us see every photograph as a tiny miracle. Whatever you get deserves your respect, even if it isn’t what you were looking for. So, be thankful for your bad photographs, just because you made them at all. ∎
We are happy to occasionally publish the words and images of photographers and writers all over the world. Today’s guest author is…
Eric Meckley is a father of three, a husband, high school teacher, and photography enthusiast from North Carolina. He shoots both film and digital whenever he has the chance.
See more of his work on Instagram here!
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What a beautiful article. I’m glad to see that, despite years of practice and striving for developing and scanning perfection, I am not alone in being a serial B+W film destroyer. Things go wrong. The first film I developed was virtually obliterated in a mess of scratches, sweaty hands and late-night swearing, but now several years later, it has a fragile poignant beauty.
“Bad photographs are an opportunity to see who we are, and who we have been, and they shouldn’t simply drive us to obsessing over who we wish we were.” What a perfect observation.