This photograph of an iris is from 2015—my college years—a time when I was developing techniques for what has since been referred to as a "hyper-realistic" editing style. I’d probably tend to disagree, but then again it’s important to stick with things that work well under pressure.

My dad taught me that a good photograph starts with a sharp focus. This simple lesson led to a rather obsessive technique: I’d open the lens aperture all the way, use the digital preview at 10x magnification, and manually find the sharpest possible point. It was an awkward, painstaking process, but at the time it felt good to be right on one irrefutable thing, consistently. And when it did work, I'd manipulate color and clarity, somewhat vaingloriously.

The initial goal was to capture a point of focus in the optimal spot to balance the composition and hold a wandering eye in check. Only after the passage of time does a nuanced irony become clear: despite perfect execution in the camera, the file itself is unanchored. The metadata wasn't stewarded well. The original is only remembered to be found, lost somewhere in one of hundreds of folders on one of half-a-dozen 2TB hard drives. IMG_????.CR2 is a perfectly focused artifact from a moment whose context has inevitably gone blurry.