This is a little bit of an exaggeration of some of the faults I and others have been guilty of over the years – but not by much, I'm bound to say. Let's tick off the goofs. The most obvious is that the watch is out of focus, and yet, despite the fact that critical sharpness on critical elements of a watch should be the first consideration, you'd be surprised how often this essential trait of a usable watch picture is absent, to one degree or another. (Remember, we're not trying to take a great picture here, just a usable one).

The second problem is that, in choosing cute props, the photographer has overdone it, and created clutter (irrelevant clutter to boot) instead of an attractive environment that avoids having a contest for your attention with the watch itself. To add insult to injury, the photographer has also chosen a cluttered background, with unwanted and overt branding (in the form of our beloved, but here, excessively distracting, HODINKEE license plate).

Finally, the composition is . . . well, there isn't any. All too often a well-meaning would-be watch photographer forgets that a watch photograph is supposed to show us a picture of a watch, not make it an element in some abstractly appealing composition. As is the case in writing, if the goal is to try to impress with your artistry rather than communicate clearly, you end up doing neither.

Now let's see what we can do to fix this train wreck.