What would you do if you had no undo? In this episode I wish to encourage photographers to consider how their creative process might change without the safety net of an undo button, potentially leading to more considered decisions or a greater willingness to take risks.
My latest video in my ‘podcast’ series is now online in YouTube. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do as it helps the algorithm promote the video to others.
Please also find below a transcript of the spoken words.
Transcript
What would you do, if you had no undo?
I have been wondering lately, what would happen to my decision process in Photoshop, or Lightroom if I didn’t have an undo option.
What if, when I altered an image in my editing application that there was no way of going back?
When we create art, we must commit to our decisions along the way: where to place the tripod, when to click the shutter and when to say when something is finished.
There are many stages along the way where we must make a choice knowing we can’t go back.
But this is not so with editing software. Lightroom and Photoshop allow us to undo a decision if we feel it was not the right one.
We think that the undo button is a savoir and for the most part it is. I would certainly not like to live without it, but philosophically speaking, it does make me wonder what might happen to my photography if there was no possibility to undo.
Would my decisions become more considered? Or would they become more hesitant?
Or would I, instead, learn to embrace a sense of spontaneity? Of seeing what happens when I accept that there is no going back?
This is what intrigues me most.
With the undo option, we can control our edits to the finest degree. We can micromanage our art if we wish.
I’m just not sure this is a good thing for our creativity.
Creativity should be fluid, and spontaneous. Learning to be creative is a lifelong lesson in learning to let go.
It is a life of experimentation, and of taking risks. For when we experiment, we open ourselves to unexpected outcomes, of visiting uncharted territory in our art. Of finding growth in our work.
Perhaps the undo button is a crutch. One that offers us security, at the cost of us experimenting less.
I have a suspicion that this may be the case.
Perhaps I back out of going down an avenue I’ve not been down before, because it is much easier to undo, and choose the path of least resistance.
Perhaps I remain in familiar territory, more so than I would, if I had no undo.
I think the best antidote to this problem, would be to view our editing as more of a performance. Anything we create would happen in the spur of the moment. Anything we create would be open to finding oneself in uncharted territory.
And I can’t think of a better way to do that, than to choose to see where my edit may go, if I had no undo.