Thursday 4 March 2010

Perfect – when done is better then perfect


I have a tendency to want things to be just perfect. This causes some issues since wanting things to be perfect has a way of making things take a lot longer. Take yesterday for example, I was going to photograph all the new jewellery I have made so I can list them in my webshop. So far I’ve taken 600 photographs, there are only 7designs and I haven’t photographed the last 3 pendants yet. That is 600 times I thought that the photos I took weren’t good enough.

Now I understand that this is a few to many photos of each thing. I get that, but I just really want to take photographs. Or more like it, I want the photos to be perfect, I want them to look like they are taken by a professional. Completely ignoring the fact that I am not a professional photographer, I do not have a photo studio (just a little home made light box), I do not have a graphic design degree or a proper photo editing software program. But still I want my photos to look like they would fit in on the sites of the famous jewellery houses.

I guess the problem is not that I want it to be perfect per se. The problem is that the requirement leads to procrastination. It took me about a year to get the first lot of photographs up. I think I probably took a couple of thousands photos that I’ve discarded but not deleted (thank good for the 1 terabyte of external memory my dad bought me a couple of years ago)

So I have to have a new strategy, the old one doesn’t work. It takes to long to get things put up in the shop, and if it’s not in the shop I guess I can’t really sell them hu!.

So I’m giving myself 1 more hour to take the rest of the photos, and then another 2 hours to edit, crop and white balance them. Then I give myself another 2 hours on Saturday to write the descriptions.
And I also decided that I have to decide that it’s ok that I’m not a perfect photographer and maybe instead look for a friend who are.

I will have to see that DONE is better then perfect sometimes.

Other more exiting news. I sold another Pendant. This one, and that made me a very happy bunny.


I also decided that I will give first time buyers a voucher for 10% of their next purchase as a swag. I have even made lite vouchers I send in the parcels. They are very sweet

4 comments:

  1. Ooo, the "not being perfect" thing is very hard to get rid of, great that you're trying to! I think your photos are great, it's a shame you can't see it. puss!

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  2. Hear,hear!! I Thought that they where taken by a pro before I learned that you made i yourself. I love the cartoon-strip (or what its called). It´s OK ju to be a litle annoying!! Love it!!

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  3. hahah, jag älskar bilden!

    Du skriver verkligen intressant om det där med perfektionism.

    Det är svårt att tänka sig att just det att
    man strävar efter att det skall bli perfekt gör att det inte ens blir bra.

    Då står det bästa ivägen för det goda...

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  4. Åh vilken suverän bild på smycket du sålde Maria!!! Herregud.
    Bilden också suverän.
    Och Katarina,vilket bra valspråk. Strävar du efter perfektionism står det bästa i vägen för det goda. Oj oj.
    Jag älskar att läsa era bloggar Lovisa och Maria.

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