I'll Fly Away

You may recognise this particular bird from a photograph in a post from last year, External Topography of a Bird (Ventral Aspect), taken during a visit to London's Natural History Museum. In my little virtual workshop here nothing goes to waste, nearly everything gets used several times over. In fact, even in this apparently simple image there are twenty Photoshop layers, most of which use one of my photographs in some transformative way.

For some reason I am quite pleased with this picture. The feeling will probably wear off; it usually does. I find the best way to evaluate my work is to print it, keep it hanging around for a few weeks, adjusting it and reprinting it from time to time until it seems finished, then to put it in a stack and forget about it. If, when I come across it again leafing through the stack months later, it grabs me all over again, then I know it's a keeper. Not that I throw any of the others away, of course: nothing goes to waste, nearly everything gets used several times over...