In Da Vinci’s beautiful biography by Walter Isaacson, there is a small portion that is dedicated to St. Jerome in the Wilderness. Maestro started the depiction of St. Jerome’s distress in the Syrian desert in 1480. He drew the man with the rock in his hand, conveyed the feeling in his face to the viewers, and made the lion roar at his feet, but he never finished the painting even though he was commissioned to do it. Some 30 years later, Leonardo learned that the anatomy of human neck is different from what he though in 1480. Circa 1510, he started working on St. Jerome again and fixed the neck muscles. He still did not finish St. Jerome but he could sleep well at night thinking that the neck muscles were presented correctly.
I remembered Da Vinci last night as I re-edited a photo from October. It is not the most masterful capture of the Canada Geese flying. It would have likely been a far better picture at an aperture of 4.5 and shutter speed of about 150. The water droplets would have been clearer and the geese more frozen in the air, but there would still have been a sense of motion in the photo. When I looked at it first, I liked the photo but too much of it was blurry and I did not do what to do with it. I edited it some but the image was still in my mind. Maybe it was not the best of photos but it deserved a better edit. After three months of learning Lightroom, I redid my edit last night and this time the shade of brown has made it much more presentable. This little photo has had me deep in thoughts since last night. We all draw incorrect neck muscles every day but we all need to pull a Leonardo and constantly go back to those drawings. We only know what we know at any given moment. If we are given more time in life to learn, we should not forget the incorrect necks.
