I have come to the realisation that pressing the shutter button on a camera is such a small part of photography.

Of course there are many rules to the composition and creation of the photo, both in your mind and in your camera but that only makes up one part of the creation. The other part, which was traditionally in the darkroom, now falls to the digital equivalent, using tools like photoshop or aperture.

Truth be told the images that come out of the camera, even if perfectly envisioned and executed, rarely pack any punch. Simply the camera spits out a generic image which you then have to process, like you would with a film transparency or negative.

This act of processing varies widely and the options available are vast so much so that this can lead to choice paralysis. We become completely overwhelmed by what can be created.

In the movie Amelie, there is an old neighbour who has spent most of his life painting the same painting over and over. He has tried for years to capture the genius that Rembrandt captured when he first created his masterpiece. Although the old man has never really managed to capture what he finds mesmerising about the original, I like the idea that you iterate over a single object, all the time developing your skills for the details. This is where my own personal challenge is born.

I want to take one image that I have created and create ten different photos from that image. They don’t have to be vastly different but it will help me explore what makes that image good, bad or just better. It might even just be what version of that photo strikes a chord with me at that moment in time.

So without further ado, here is the original, out of camera image.

This photo was taken at Port Campbell on the Great Ocean Road. There is nothing striking about this photo, it is a simple view of the cliffs approaching sunset.

Let’s see what happens.