Many years ago I made an image of The Lone Cypress that can be seen on the seventeen mile loop road around the Spyglass golf course in the Pebble Beach complex on the Monterrey Peninsula. The tree has been there for many years and is rather controversial in that the Pebble Beach Association has Trademarked the tree and states that photographers may not take images of the tree for commercial purposes. This is constantly in litigation and my view is that the image of the tree has changed and is always changing so how can the tree be Trademarked. I would agree that the original image could be trademarked, however, every moment that the tree exists it is changing. Anyway, I digress. The point is that the image I made was over twenty years old and the colors were not great and the exposure was not the type that I would make now. Solution, first make it Black and White. That is the oldest recipe for a great subject but lousy colors and light. If I recall it was a rather gloomy day and I was shooting color film. After the change to Black and White I added my own personal touches to give it the feel and appearance of a 19th century toned print with not so perfect chemistry and printing as was common in that time. So there you go, there is life for a "not so great" photograph if you just use your imagination.
Chief among the scenic attractions is the Lone Cypress Tree (36.568738°N 121.965321°W), a salt-pruned Monterey cypress (macrocarpa) tree which is the official symbol of Pebble Beach and a frequent fixture of television broadcasts from this area. In 1990 the Monterey Journal reported that Pebble Beach's lawyer, Kerry C. Smith, said "The image of the tree has been trademarked by us," and that it intended to control any display of the cypress for commercial purposes. The company had warned photographers that "they cannot even use existing pictures of the tree for commercial purposes."[3] Other legal commentators have questioned the Pebble Beach Company's ability to invoke intellectual property laws to restrict others' use of such images.