Yesterday I foolishly risked life and limb on an icy two lane bridge to get a few photographs of a swampy river nearby.  I pass over this bridge when I go into downtown Madison and always wish I had time to stop and take photos.  (Or wish I had remembered my camera!)  However, when I got home I found that I was pretty much disappointed in the photos I took.  I suppose it was all the whizzing cars going by at 3:30 PM, and then there was the slippery slush and ice … and well, that’s just not conducive to good photography now is it?

And yet, there was one that I found quite interesting when I changed the perspective and did some cropping.  No, it isn’t that the photo editing that makes the picture any better, but it was how the changed perspective made the colors and textures pop when I did so.

Have a look…

Here is the original photograph with a bit of camera shake (Recall those whizzing cars!)

And now the crops and changed perspectives

Simply flipping it changed the perspective and brought out the reflected blues from the sky.

Turning it on end allows the eye to focus on the tree line and its mirrored reflection.  Which led me to this crop…

And then this close up.

I really love those blues!

Seems there is a lesson here that might be applied to better photos in the future.  And although I have done this before,  it was this stunning photo entitled Chinatown, New York,  by Matthew Goddard-Jones, found on the National Geographic site that got me to revisit the idea:

Now this is a beauty!  It gives me something to aspire to and will get me back out there looking for  better shots to work with.

How do you handle a bad photo?  Do you choose to hit delete or play with it to find some hidden interest?