editing...

So, when i read this quote
"When you begin a picture, you often make some pretty discoveries. You must be on guard against these. Destroy the thing, do it over several times. In each destroying of a beautiful discovery, the artist does not really suppress it, but rather transforms it, condenses it, makes it more sustainable. What comes out in the end is the result of discarded finds. Otherwise, you become your own connoisseur. I sell myself nothing." - Pablo Picasso (1935)
found over at wan.der.lust.ag.ra.phy I was initially reminded an ex girlfriend, and good friend, who once commented on a painting that i did when i was still getting to know her that she found hanging in our highschool one day.... She said something like "i dont understand why you destroy all the beautiful things that you create"... a thought that has always stuck with me.
But this quote is not about creating something beautiful and destroying it to make the final product, its about the process to make something beautiful (not necessarily in the aesthetic sense of the word) enough to be sustainable. So from there i am reminded of the ongoing process of editing in photography... There is of course great amounts of editing that goes on in other art forms but photography is surely near, if not at, the top of the list of editing... One could argue, most of photography is a process of editing, from the edit, or cropping, of the image in camera to the final edit of a cohesive body of work. One can not say enough about the process of a successful edit in photography... something to be left for another time.