Blemish or Beauty Mark?

Oct 11, 2019

There are few things as debilitating as the quest for perfection.

Even knowing this, when I created the Expressionist Photograph for Dark and Lovely. It was part of my exploration using toys, in this case, Barbie, as my subject models.

I had made it all the way to the final stages of the piece before I realized that there was a white speck on the image right beneath the right eye. Looking at the original photo (as seen below), I'm still not exactly sure what happened there. It doesn't look like a speck on the lens necessarily, it doesn't show on any other images I took that day and it doesn't appear that it was something actually on the doll's face.

The problem was I had already spent I don't know how long creating and in my mind, completing, Dark and Lovely before noticing the speck. 

Overall, I really liked how I had interpreted.

It was one of those moments where I literally had to make a decision of whether I was going to scrap all the work I had done, fix the original image and try and recreate the feel I had already created.

Maybe that wouldn't work though. I made no notes on what I had done to create the final painterly look of the image, so if I started again from scratch, I would more than likely come up with a different final image. 

Ultimately, the question came down to, "Was I going to let the idea of perfection govern what I showed to the public?"

Before you go, please comment below on what do you think I should have done?

If you would like to see what the final image looks like, click here.