There is no such thing as “good” writing: only good re-writing.

I heard this mantra incessantly going through school (and I majored in English, so I heard it a LOT). While it was clearly true for writing papers, I never realized when I was young just how much it applies to all aspects of life.

We constantly re-write ourselves (if we're working on ourselves like we should). We re-write our careers, relationships and taste in things. Everything. All in an effort to improve the fundamental abilities and places we started with/at.

In photography: you re-write by editing. As with all categories in life, photographs should always start with what you think are the best foundations: concepts/composition/settings, etc. that you can think of. But, as with everything, there are glitches, limitations and imperfections in the vision you're trying to realize. Because of this, you edit in order to try to see in your final result what your eye/mind saw through the lens when you took the photo, or to reflect what your intention of the photo was.

I'll give you a few examples of before and after editing.

In this photo that @oonacat.art took of me, she had to overcompensate for how dark the setting actually was, by overexposing the photo, which washed out the color and feel of the space we were photographing in; so I re-introduced the depth and feel of the location when editing.

Freyja After

Freyja Before

In this image, I wanted the subject to appear like she was floating underwater, since that's how the picture "felt" to me, when looking at it. Because of that, I tried to erase the background distractions that were still showing through on the "before" image, by making the background black. I also completely revamped the color scheme from ultra warm to ultra cool, while leaving a touch of warmth on her face and hands because I liked the way the light played warmer there, in contrast to the rest of the cold feel of the photo.

Light Dancing After

Light Dancing Before

In this picture the composition wasn't quite right in the before shot. There was a painting in the image that was competing with the subject for attention (especially having two faces so close to each other in the image). I cropped out most of the painting, leaving only what had to be there. The mood was also wrong in the before picture, so I re-introduced the distractedly sultry mood by adding shadows and black back into the photo

1920s After

1920s Before