Didn’t Make the Cut: The Sun Won
· by Roy Edlund
This one didn’t make the cut on my 2027 calendar, and I went a few rounds with myself before it lost.
Sea oats in silhouette, the sun coming up right behind them, the whole sky and the water going gold at the same moment. I loved it the second it showed up on the back of the camera. I still love it, that didn't change.
The trouble is I was shooting straight into the sun, and the sun will always win.
My focus drifted soft right where I wanted it crisp, and the lens threw a flare I never asked for, that hazy wash of light bleeding across the frame.
On your phone, you hardly notice it; you feel the warmth and scroll on.
But a calendar photo isn’t a phone screen. It gets blown up and hung on a wall and at that size, soft focus stops reading as dreamy and starts looking like a mistake, and the flare stops being a happy accident and starts being the first thing your eye picks up on.
I mean, I love the shot, I have a matted print in 5x7 and 8x12 and it looks fine enough, but not great.
That’s the thing making these calendars has taught me: loving a photo and being able to print it are two different skills.
The heart picks fast and the printer is merciless, and when they disagree, the printer wins - because I’m the one who gets to forgive a soft frame. The person who hung it on their wall never agreed to.
So here it is, flare and all, on the screen where it always looked its best.
Love from here. ❤️
Prints of the photos in this post are available in the Beach Bum Gallery on paper, canvas and metal.