Here's a not-at-all-secret Secret:

I never share the photos I take that I like the best.

Fear that I'll never make better (: my pride). Fear that the images won't be received under my control (: my privacy).

Instead, what do I share? Almost perfect portraits, screengrabs, outtakes, the half-ends of film:

Modi Meshell, August 2011

Failure is a favorite subject of mine lately.

How a subject fails. How to make a subject fail. How to fail a subject.

Here's a photo in which Modi only half appears -- and without a face, what most people consider the symbol of their identity.

Does its existence as half a frame make it a failure? Or does this half-frame save it from snoringly-decent existence?

I've written about this before. You know the rest.

Maybe I'm writing about this because I'm visiting Modi and her new family when I return to Houston tomorrow.

Maybe I'm writing because I only have old images on my computer; nothing like last year's images to make you feel inadequate!

I don't know what I think about these end-of-the-roll images. I can't deny their charm; they're like the once-nostalgic Polaroid.

Aesthetically appealing? Yes. Kinda lazy in how easily it seduces? Yes.

But I do have a second photo that looks exactly like the one above. Except that it consists of an entire frame -- no yellow.

Had it been successful, I would have shared it with you.
No, that's actually not true.

Why would I want to share a nearly-successful photo in this format?
Wouldn't it be much more fun to show you something that tried to work but fell embarrassingly short?

If I make an imperative statement (example: post a good photo = no questions), then what do I learn?
I'd rather convince myself to love ONE photo I consider a failure than love one hundred photos that are pleasantly mediocre.

And I haven't dared touch the difference between what I find successful versus what you find successful.

* * *

In a personal note from 1962, Gerhard Richter wrote:

Strange as this may sound, not knowing where one is going -- being lost, being a loser -- reveals the greatest possible faith and optimism, as against collective security and collective significance.