photo prose

The value of an opinion

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An artist must have strong opinions or the canvas remains blank. Everyone has an opinion. 

Your son got married. You chose your photos. They are bound. You got the album. That was then. Today, your photographer first has to “design” the book — each page is laid out: single image, multiple images, background images, borders, colored borders, colored backgrounds — with consideration given to the relative size of each image. You must approve the design of the images you chose.  

This means an appointment often years after the event when you have finally chosen the photos. You then visit the studio and … and there you see it on the big screen … it chokes you up … so beautiful. And now that you see how the images were actually used, you start to wish you chose more and if you chose the right ones.

“I love what you did Gary, but are you sure that is the best image of Dovid? Gary, my husband should see it; there were so many great shots of Dovid, I told him we should have picked more. He always has an opinion. Just to make sure. Could you put it online, Gary?”

It may not look the same online. Things could look darker, lighter, bluer or yellow, on your monitor at home. “That’s OK.  He’ll understand. I would just like him to see it, before you bind it.

So the client is sent a link to view the album and see how the pages flow; just like in the studio, only smaller, with a border and a line going through the middle to denote the page fold.

Weeks pass. 

From logins to the site it is obvious that many more than the husband are viewing the album. Over the course of four weeks, every page gets annotated with suggestions of how to change, alter, modify, and what might best be described as mutilate the design! Most fail to feel the flow of the album as a whole or how the images had worked so well together. They suggest using another image here or moving that image to there. Soon we are changing already revised pages, often back to the original version, but sometimes to a totally different style from what the original instructions and client consultation emphasized as being the goal of the book. The client is sometimes unsure in what a very “talented” friend meant, but feels compelled to consider such wisdom anyway.

Everyone has an opinion. You value each and every one. Approvals take months. Leather die lots change in that time, hard drives fail and are replaced. Any artist’s original feel and motivation for the design is long lost. No one gets to enjoy the originally beautiful layout done with thought, and based on style and substance. No one enjoys the images as much as it seems those that succeed in changing the design enjoy being creative experts on someone else’s dime with someone else’s album.

You wanted something special but after all those opinions, it has been reengineered to be perfect for them, and perfectly ordinary to you, while you figure it is as it should be. You are just happy it is done. And that is an opinion I certainly can share.

Gary Rabenko is artistic and technical director of Rabenko Photography and Video Arts. 516-593-9760, gary@rabenko.com