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Study of a Failure
16 December 2025
We were about to prepare dinner when, looking out the kitchen window, we were charmed by the sky at dusk and the single window of incandescent light across the street. The universal emulated by the particular, we thought. Poetry, we summed it up.
We ran for our phone camera and tried to line up the shot. But the wide-angle lens included far too much of the scene and the telephoto cropped out too much.
We'd have to do a narrow crop in post, that's all. No problem. So we composed an image with the window and the sky in it and took the shot.
COLOR
We were clearly convinced this was a color photo. Matching just the tonality of the sky and window wasn't as persuasive as matching their hue and saturation too.
But the rest of the landscape in color distracted from the two main elements. It was December and there were Christmas decorations here and there. A house rimmed in lights in the distance. Some nearby bushes flickering brightly.
We dealt with those using the Rubber Stamp tool in Photoshop after we made our narrow crop.
But the front window of the house with the yellow window was disturbingly bright. Hmm. We selected it and use Levels to make the bright panes darker.
So we had done all the fixes the image required but we weren't happy with it.
The sky was a bit washed out (which can happen with bright sunsets). So we selected the sky and darkened it a bit while raising the saturation.
Still no.
MONOCHROME
We decided to simplify the image by going monochrome. Suddenly the loss of color called out for more subtle detail in the shadows we had let go in the color version.
But then we'd lost the point of the picture. The window emulating the sky's warm light.
Could we colorize just the sky and window? Well, sure, but that struck us as trying too hard with the monochrome image. We might as well return to the color image and play with the shadows.
CONCLUSION
It was one failure after another, one problem leading to another. No mistakes just disappointments. Nothing approached that hungry moment when we had been charmed by what we saw out the kitchen window.
But if there's one thing that can be said for failure, it's that it provides plenty of food for thought. A diet of which, after all, is what helps one manage to improve.