More often than not, a mistake is just that... a mistake. It wasn't what was intended and as such, can be disappointing or frustrating. A worst case scenario is the passing moment that's just not repeatable; best case is you learn something from it. That's unless what you find is the elusive happy accident. The unintentional fault, error or miscalculation turned into an unexpected stroke of luck.
As rare as this is, most photographers have in some way experienced this good fortune. Some time ago, I wound on a film past 38 frames and snapped it out of the can in the back of the camera. Believing I had safely retrieved it in my darkened bathroom, half the frames were, in fact, fogged. Amongst the negatives was this image, my very own 'happy accident'. I don't know what happened, but I was pleased with the result. It's an image that I could never reproduce and a reminder never to force the winding lever on a camera. When I first saw Ode to the Imperfection by my friend Nico Westlicht, I was struck by its striking composition and graphic arrangement, but the truth was a little more complicated:
‘You are in an evocative place with your camera, the tripod, the light meter, your wonderful muse posing for you, ready to shoot. The afternoon light is perfect, and you decide to finally use that expensive Fuji Provia roll you bought some time ago. Basically, I had all the ingredients for a perfect photo-shooting. But what happens, then? Well, what happens is under your eyes: either I was not able to fully turn the wind lever, or the camera is not that reliable. I still have to investigate the cause of the superimposing pictures, but you can easily imagine how the huge expectations crashed badly this morning. Well, film photography can be frustrating at times, but I still find it much more exciting than digital photography. Still, I swear to myself that every time I will shoot a nice picture I will look back at this one as a lesson for the future, to remind myself how easy it is to fail even though you don't expect to’.
Fuji Provia 400X | Pentacon Six TL © All Rights Reserved | Nico Westlicht 2014
I still simply love the central image; arresting the viewer to look at the picture as a whole, the fabulous colours and the graphic light and dark lines. It became for me one of the best triptychs I had seen in ages; a true happy accident if I ever saw one and as I said to Nico at the time 'You may have been disappointed but I can assure you I'm not'. You can see more of Nico's great photos on his website nicowestlicht.com