Is there such a thing as too many photos? I mean, really – have you ever flicked through a photo album and thought ‘I wish I didn’t take photos that day’. Sure, years ago when you spent a fortune on film, you might have said ‘I wish I didn’t take so many photos’ – but that was just a matter of cost.
These days, digital photography makes it easy. Even if you did take photos you didn’t like, it’s only a matter of hitting the delete button.
Whether it’s professional photography or amateur photography, you can never take too many photos.
Picture this – you’ve been hired to shoot for a wedding. You are shooting away randomly when you suddenly capture the Bride’s face light up as her groom turns to compliment her. That shot may be their favourite – but because nothing specific was going on, you might have missed it.
As a photographer, you need to use your camera as your eyes. Capture the little things that often go unnoticed – the hand gestures and facial expressions of Aunt Norma as she retells the story she’s told a million times before. Often times, it’s the little, seeming unimportant, photos that are the ones which are cherished.
With portrait photography, taking a lot of photos can often give you the greatest results – the expression on a babies face for only a second can be captured forever. In nature photography, without taking a lot of photos, you may miss that perfect shot where you capture a fish leaping from the water. Regardless of what your style is, there’s no such thing as too many shots.
Photos will tell a story better than words can – and unexpected moments happen, well, when you least expect them!
I agree in part with your post David but in the digital age where high quality equipment is affordable and accessible to anyone with the desire to make images, we have seen an explosion of people uploading photos to the internet that are frankly “rubbish”.
Being a photographer isn’t about numbers, it’s about the craft and skill of being able to capture moments that are well composed, correct exposure, in focus. Not about point and shoot and upload.
It’s about pride in showing only your best work at the skill level you’re at, not about “look at how many photos I have taken”. You make an image not “take an image”! If you go to an exhibition of images, you don’t want to see every image that was taken on a particular occasion, you only want to see the artists best work.
Do a search on the internet for your favourite subject and look at the number of images available, then closely look at the quality….you maybe surprised at what you find.
There is also no point in uploading images if you don’t follow through with proper captions or descriptions of what the image’s origin is…it just becomes a happy snap in a sea of images. This is why Google and other search providers are now starting to “cull” what they term orphan images from their search results, these images have little if any benefit to the wider community.
I said I agree in part with your post, by this I mean, taking lots of photos can be useful as a learning tool or to caption action, but if the subject is static then you should work methodically and with purpose to capture you subject, not what I call “spay and prey” approach.