Finding Clarity in Creative Choices
Updated: Sep 25
When I started Half Past Normal, I thought the hard part would be choosing which photographs to showcase.
It turns out that was overly optimistic.
The photographs are perhaps the easiest part.
The challenging aspect is everything that follows.
A title. A crop. Colour or black and white. How much editing is enough? Does a photograph belong on the website at all? Does it need accompanying words? Which words? Do those words explain too much? Where does it sit alongside everything else?
Having too many choices sounds like a good problem to have. Yet, it can make even the smallest creative decision feel strangely difficult.
Just when I think a decision is final, another one appears behind it.
There Isn't Really a Right Answer
This might be the hardest part.
Most decisions I make for Half Past Normal lack a correct answer.
I can spend twenty minutes adjusting a crop by a fraction, and both versions work. I can write three titles and dislike none of them. I can edit a photograph slightly warmer, compare it with the previous version, and genuinely not know which one I prefer.
There is no green tick to indicate I’ve chosen correctly.
Sometimes, I wish there were.
Instead, I’ve learned to ask a different question:
Does this still feel like Half Past Normal?
This question has proven much more useful than asking whether something is technically perfect.
Consistency Without Making Everything the Same
This has been another unexpected challenge.
I want Half Past Normal to feel like a cohesive body of work. However, I don't want every photograph to appear as though it has been processed through the same recipe.
The photographs were not taken in the same place, on the same camera, or even during the same decade. Some were deliberate captures, while others were taken on old phones when something caught my attention for just a few seconds.
Making all these photographs visually identical might create consistency.
Yet, it would also strip away much of the reason I appreciate them.
So, I find myself trying to build consistency elsewhere.
In how I choose photographs. In how I edit them individually. In the words surrounding them. In allowing quieter images to remain quiet rather than trying to make everything demand attention.
It’s less about creating a specific look and more about recognising a particular way of seeing.
I’m still working out exactly what that is.
Every New Idea Creates Another Decision
What began as a simple space for photographs has gradually acquired a blog, music, social accounts, print experiments, and, more recently, a way to document how some photographs are edited.
Each addition seemed perfectly sensible at the time.
Yet, each has produced an entirely new collection of decisions.
Should every photograph have a song?
Which photographs might work in print?
How often should I post?
Should I explain an edit or simply show the finished photograph?
How much of the process belongs publicly on the site?
At some point, I realised I wasn’t just choosing photographs anymore. I was deciding what the thing itself would become.
I’m deliberately trying not to answer that too quickly.
The Temptation to Make Rules When There Are Too Many Choices
Rules are wonderfully attractive when I’m tired of making decisions.
Use this crop.
Edit this way.
Post on these days.
Write this many words.
Use this format every time.
Problem solved.
Except eventually, a photograph comes along that doesn’t fit the rule.
I’m beginning to think that’s a good thing.
I have created systems around Half Past Normal. Otherwise, managing it would become unmanageable. There are numbers, archives, workflows, and schedules quietly keeping everything organised behind the scenes.
But I’m trying not to confuse the system used to manage the work with the work itself.
The database can have rules.
The photograph doesn’t necessarily need them.
Learning When to Stop
Perhaps the most useful lesson I’ve learned so far is that a creative decision doesn’t have to become permanent simply because I’ve made it.
I can crop a photograph differently later.
I can change a title.
I can decide something I previously overlooked deserves another look.
I can try an idea and quietly abandon it when it doesn’t work.
That sounds obvious, but it removes a surprising amount of pressure.
Half Past Normal is only a few weeks old. It would be slightly ridiculous if I already knew exactly what it was supposed to look like in five years.
For now, I’m content to let it develop photograph by photograph and decision by decision.
Even if some of those decisions take considerably longer than they probably should.
And perhaps that’s part of making something rather than simply filling it.
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