Technical Perfection vs. Raw Visual Impact

Read an interesting, informative, and articulate article on Chase Jarvis' blog today. Chase's update was penned by Scott, Chase's #1 on his post-production team. For the most part, the update chronicles why Scott, the blog update's author, is decidedly luke-warm these days when it comes to stock photography.

But that's not what grabbed my interest. (I don't shoot no steenkeeng stock.)

Apparently, at Chez Jarvis, technical perfection now takes a back burner to raw visual impact. In other words, technically imperfect images have become, at times, Jarvis' snaps du jour.

Don't get me wrong. I'm confident Scott isn't advocating completely blind eyes when it comes to an image's technical elements. And I doubt I'm confident Chase Jarvis doesn't set out to shoot technically imperfect images. But these days, if a choice is to be made between visual impact and technical perfection, visual impact trumps technical minutiae.

This relatively new, Chase Jarvis & Co., way of making photographs kind of plays into the art v. crap debate. Jarvis' picture-making-machine doesn't churn out much crap if any at all. Leastwise, imagery that would be labeled as crap by most of us. But, according to Scott, art buyers are now looking at an image's visual impact first and its technical merits second. So now, I'm thinking, if an image seems closer to crap, at least from a technical POV, but has incredible visual impact, it is art. Maybe good art. Maybe even great art. Certainly, marketable and salable art.

Since I can't argue with Chase Jarvis' continuing success as a world-class photographer, I'm gonna learn from his post-guy's article and, perhaps, try to be a bit less technically-anal while shooting and become, if I can, more focused on visual impact. Of course, I don't have the post-prod skills to be technically-anal in post anyway. And my lack of PS skills also means that post won't contribute much to my images' visual impact--so nothing changes there--but perhaps my eye should be (way) more on the lookout for ways to enhance my work with visual power versus technical pursuit?

I hope my clients agree.

The pretty girl at the top is Kat, from a few years ago, snapped right after she whipped me at arm wrestling.