Sunday, November 2, 2008

1 or 100 photos?


Noon sunshine in November, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

I have been thinking, once again, whether I'm taking too many photos. Should I be more careful, do more "pre-editing" instead of shooting hundreds of photos daily?

When I used a film camera, the price of film and development kept the number of photos small, and I did a lot of "simulated" photos, deciding not to take a photo after all. With digital, I can afford to compose a photo, shoot, and move the position or framing slightly, and shoot again.

By this iterative process I not only can move towards an acceptable photo, and also keep a record of my progress. In fact, often in post-processing I'm planning to crop a picture in a certain way, and then I found that the next image in the series was framed exactly that way.

But should I nevertheless change my shooting habits? Do more visual exporing and less shooting? I don't know. The current approach feels right, and although there is a price to be paid later - the LX3 will break down due to having a lot of use - I'm planning to continue like this.

I was reading - once again - a photography book by Freeman Patterson. I like his attitude towards subjects - he can spend days, weeks, months and even years exporing a single subject. I feel there is a similar kind of adventure available in the places here nearby. No need to go visiting fancy resorts somewhere far away.

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