Shoulda Left Well Enough Alone: the Painter's Lament

I like to take pictures of the progress I make on a painting, for all sorts of reasons. I think it's instructional to see it in it's various stages, it helps me to see it from "afar" so as to judge it in a more detached way, people who eventually own the piece like to have a chronicle of its creation. But, sometimes it will turn around and bite me in the butt with the "painter's lament", why didn't I leave well enough alone?? All I can say is that I knew I needed to bring up the value of the water on the right side of the bridge and you wouldn't believe how much paint I put on and scraped off, leaving little bits of color, in an attempt to bring in the different shades of the ripples and the reflected light off the clouds/sky. But, on another note, the strength of the huge bridge has been established. So, there's that.