Decision paralysis

I write this as I procrastinate on editing one of the most incredible scenes I've ever witnessed. It's been days now, and I am struggling with even choosing which take is best.

I first went to this location during the evening to scout for compositions. I walked around with my camera for an hour at least, then uploaded the images to Lightroom, did some rough edits, and found the best angles and foreground elements. That alone was a lot of choices that had to be made. Does it look better with the camera low to the ground? Medium height? High up? An inch to the left? The right? One of the infinite number of options in-between?

Then I headed out again to be there during the time I actually wanted to shoot — the sunrise — when weather conditions looked promising. I woke up at 2:30am to be there. When I arrived, I ended up with heavy rain and zero visibility.

On my third trip there, I was incredibly lucky. Often three visits is not enough to get the conditions you want. But, I witnessed the most magical mist and light that morning. Everything lined up beautifully.

I ended up with a dozen images — two compositions and multiple moments during the brief window of magical light.

But now, I have to edit these, and the number of choices is even more overwhelming. Does it look better with the fog covering the ridge in front of Rainier fully or partly? Or do I blend the two? Do I leave a lot of foreground for more depth, or do I crop in a bit to draw more focus on the mountain? Do I stamp out the fallen tree and stray bit of cloud or leave them in? What is the best shade of blue for this scene? Shade of green? Every other color present here? What color harmony best captures the mood of this location? What am I trying to convey?

Just the basic Lightroom edits leave me with a severe case of choice paralysis that makes me want to go write some Python code to escape the infinite number of “acceptable“ choices in making art. And this is before I'm even in Photoshop, where the real "magic" happens — dodge and burn, light painting, Orton effect, and so on. Dozens of layers, hundreds or thousands of brush strokes. Each one another choice.

Meanwhile, a voice in the back of my mind continues to sow seeds of doubt into every choice I try to make. "You don't really know what you're doing. A 'real' artist would know which choices look better. You know nothing. They've been painting since they were five and also have natural talent that you'll never have. It's why you don't have a big following like they do. You're not really creative. Why do you even try?"

In writing code, things are much simpler. Does this logically make more sense? Does it work? Does it work more efficiently than the alternative? Often, the answer is simply yes or no. Even in an ambiguous situation like designing a complex architecture, logical arguments can be made for certain decisions. And ultimately, as long as it works, you did a good job. People can now use the thing you built to do whatever they need it for. Even product decisions such as which UX flow is more intuitive can be fairly objective thanks to A/B testing.

The problem is, if I do manage to create a work of art that I would look at and be happy and proud, that would be more fulfilling than having built something actually useful. A fine-art landscape not useful — in fact, it's utterly useless by most standards — but, it's unique and beautiful and an expression of something. I'd much rather have a beautiful image in my obituary rather than some very well-written code that powers some tool that people find useful. 

So, clearly it is worth the effort. But just how much effort — I think most people have no idea. Or, perhaps my tolerance of ambiguity or some other personality trait is not high enough to be an effective artist. Still, I find it fulfilling enough in the end to keep going, for now. Nothing worthwhile is easy. Maybe one day, I will get better at knowing which choices to make.