Mistakes as an Excuse to Play

“Mistakes are the portals to discovery.”
– James Joyce

Slightly blurred embellishment, Volunteer Park Conservatory

Cropped photo with HDR-ish and Duo-tone effects

Here are a few of the out-takes from my photographing excursion to the Volunteer Park Conservatory.

I was inspired by Ellen J. Langer, who in her book On Becoming an Artist:  Reinventing Yourself through Mindful Creativity, encourages readers to keep going when they make mistakes, use them as portals of discovery and play, and to incorporate them into their work.

I generally don’t want to mess about with what I consider my more successful photos, but I often do wind up with blurred or otherwise unsatisfactory shots.  Rather than delete the ones from my Conservatory visit, I decided to stay with the images and play with some of Picasa’s photo-editing tools.  Here are the before and after images:

Curling leaves

Curling leaves with posterized effect

Plant from the Volunteer Park Conservatory

Photo with duo-tone, HDR-ish, and posterized effects

Blurred plant

Saturated photo with HDR-ish and Lomo-ish effects

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