I’ve been questioning my photography lately. Honestly, I don’t feel the photos I share are resonating with my social community. That community is made up of family, friends, and more importantly peers.

I have always strived for technical perfection. If I’m taking a photo of a bird, for instance, the eye has to be tack sharp. I want to see amazing detail in the features. The exposure and colors have to be spot on. The composition has to be optimal and interesting. The photos by just about as good as they can be, technically speaking.

But they are missing something.

Another of my peers shared a photo that was a bit out of focus. She was also apologizing for its lack of sharpness. This resonated with me because her photo was quite enjoyable. It had emotion and caught my attention. Sure it wasn’t technically perfect. It didn’t need to be.

I’m an old-school photojournalist and a common saying among even older-school PJs was “F/8 and be there”.

F/8 and be there

The history behind this is that in days of old, PJ’s would set their manual film cameras to a safe setting like 1/60th of a second for the shutter speed with a medium-high speed film, like ISO 400, and set the aperture to f/8. They could pre-focus to a hyperfocal distance. Then if they rolled up on a scene and had to catch the decisive moment, there was a good chance they would get the photo and if necessary push process the film if the exposure was off. That’s a lot of techno-mumbo-jumbo to get to the point:

Make sure to get the photo and don’t miss it putzing with your camera

It’s okay for a photo to not be 100% in focus. It’s okay for a photo to have noise. It’s okay for the colors to be yucky. As long as the photo has the emotional appeal, as long as it captures the moment, as long as it tells the story, you have been successful. Of course, it’s better to hit all the technical marks, but if you have two competing photos: One that is technically better vs. one that is emotionally better, you should consider going with the emotionally better one.

Here is a good example. Back in 2014, I got a great photo at Zoo Miami of an adult male lion with three cubs. In one photo, the autofocus caught some tree leaves but it’s the photo where all the cats had the best positioning and facial expressions. A photo shot a fraction of a second later, the autofocus caught on the adult lion’s face and was tack sharp, but by then one of the kittens had started to turn away.

For social media sharing, the autofocus problem really wasn’t that much of a problem, but I decided I wanted a 20×30 of that print on my wall. When I went back to the original source file and zoomed in to 100% and saw the photo. My heart sank. There was no way it would hold up to that big of an enlargement. I found the other photo that would hold up well, but it just didn’t have the emotional impact. I went ahead and ordered the print of the technically perfect photo, but I was left haunted by the choice. I went back the next day and brought the out-of-focus one into Adobe Photoshop and saw what I could do with modern tools. After getting a bit aggressive with the sharpening, I thought it might hold up to 20×30 given how viewing distance works, so I went and ordered a new 20×30 of the less technically perfect photo. The new one is now hanging on the wall and from where I sit in the room it looks amazing.

Don’t be so quick to throw away an over noisy photo or one that the focus isn’t perfect. If the subject tells the story you want to go with it. Sure some people will be critical of your choice. I can’t count the number of people who tell me there is too much noise in my photos.

F/8 and be there!