Nice, reminds me that we used this same phrase to disparage the oxymoronic marksmanship technique of “spray and pray,” when i was in the Marines.
On a more serious note, I went to a talk in NYC last week featuring a photographer who has shot a few stories for Nat Geo, which he was discussing. When I asked him how many frames he shot for one particular story, he replied, “about 45,000 (!)” [emphasis mine].
I thought that was a crazy number (especially since it was film), but as the group talked more about this; his point was that too many photographers don’t ‘work’ a situation properly. He talked about his approach in the digital age: It’s one thing to run up and reel off 8GB of shots, it’s another to use ‘chimping’ to your advantage, to see how the shots are developing (pardon the pun) and make adjustments to get to the final frame. He would shoot hundreds of shots and often the last few were the ones the editors liked most; but those looked much different, in terms of composition, point of view, story elements than when he first started.
It’s similar to looking at old contact sheets of photographers and seeing how they worked a situation to come up with the frame that eventually got published – just that they did it in their heads and not on and LCD screen.
Anyway, I love the shirt – just don’t wear it on location in front of the creative director!
@Michael Seto, So right. When I look at my contact sheets from my film days it amazes me that once I got the polaroid right there would then follow between 6 & 10 rolls of almost identical stuff. I used to shoot on an RZ, so 10 rolls is 100 frames. I just went through half a dozen recent digital shoots and the way each shoot has evolved in the first 100 frames is really quite awesome. This is what I love about digital – the way that you can move it around and change it up so quickly. It becomes much more of an evolving work in progress from start to finish, rather than a fixed shooting position that has been proven to work through the production of test polaroids.
Years ago I gave a photography estimate to a neighbor in my building. It was for photos of signs he painted (he was a custom sign painter). I gave him a great rate as he was my neighbor. He took one look at the estimate, and with an aghast look on his face said,”how can it possibly cost this much, any monkey can take a picture”.
Fast forward twenty years, and his statement is true. Today’s digital shooter does not have to think very much about focus, exposure, processing, etc. That was the very foundation of good photography for 150 years.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve fully embraced digital photography and I love it. But I’ll bet if you gave a monkey a decent digital camera for a day, that monkey would have a lot of in focus well exposed shots. He’d probably be considered a genius for the raw and wild quality of his images.
Good composition, thoughtful approach to subject matter, and caring about the craft and art of photography will always trump “spray and pray”.
I’ve found that the prayer part is most effective when it comes before spraying, though God takes special delights when I forget my ABCs that P comes before S. Perhaps Adobe understood this fundamental when it named it’s software PS (OK that was weak).
In The Photography Manual of Life James 1:17 tells that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
God’s in control of the light so I’ll be found on my knees seeking that light and if I come up short with a leftsided log jam histogram, my faith will still be in Him who died for me. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the LIGHT!
Know the light, every good photographer does and every bad one can – see John 3:16 for further instructions from the manual.
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That seems to be the model of several modern genres. But they forgot the archiving bubble. Oh wait, I forgot, there is no way to archive anymore…….
Nice, reminds me that we used this same phrase to disparage the oxymoronic marksmanship technique of “spray and pray,” when i was in the Marines.
On a more serious note, I went to a talk in NYC last week featuring a photographer who has shot a few stories for Nat Geo, which he was discussing. When I asked him how many frames he shot for one particular story, he replied, “about 45,000 (!)” [emphasis mine].
I thought that was a crazy number (especially since it was film), but as the group talked more about this; his point was that too many photographers don’t ‘work’ a situation properly. He talked about his approach in the digital age: It’s one thing to run up and reel off 8GB of shots, it’s another to use ‘chimping’ to your advantage, to see how the shots are developing (pardon the pun) and make adjustments to get to the final frame. He would shoot hundreds of shots and often the last few were the ones the editors liked most; but those looked much different, in terms of composition, point of view, story elements than when he first started.
It’s similar to looking at old contact sheets of photographers and seeing how they worked a situation to come up with the frame that eventually got published – just that they did it in their heads and not on and LCD screen.
Anyway, I love the shirt – just don’t wear it on location in front of the creative director!
@Michael Seto, So right. When I look at my contact sheets from my film days it amazes me that once I got the polaroid right there would then follow between 6 & 10 rolls of almost identical stuff. I used to shoot on an RZ, so 10 rolls is 100 frames. I just went through half a dozen recent digital shoots and the way each shoot has evolved in the first 100 frames is really quite awesome. This is what I love about digital – the way that you can move it around and change it up so quickly. It becomes much more of an evolving work in progress from start to finish, rather than a fixed shooting position that has been proven to work through the production of test polaroids.
Can a thousand monkeys with thousand cameras take a good portrait of Shakespeare?
“Click & Chimp” :)
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No doubt I may cause a slight stir here; but 20 years ago in Australia we used to call this the ‘American Method’, “Its got to be in there somewhere”.
We were probably just jealous because film was so damn expensive down under!
Dont tell me, next season it’ll be a little stick man with a Red camera. Good stuff from the duck as always
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Have you been to one of my lectures Rob? LOL
Years ago I gave a photography estimate to a neighbor in my building. It was for photos of signs he painted (he was a custom sign painter). I gave him a great rate as he was my neighbor. He took one look at the estimate, and with an aghast look on his face said,”how can it possibly cost this much, any monkey can take a picture”.
Fast forward twenty years, and his statement is true. Today’s digital shooter does not have to think very much about focus, exposure, processing, etc. That was the very foundation of good photography for 150 years.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve fully embraced digital photography and I love it. But I’ll bet if you gave a monkey a decent digital camera for a day, that monkey would have a lot of in focus well exposed shots. He’d probably be considered a genius for the raw and wild quality of his images.
Good composition, thoughtful approach to subject matter, and caring about the craft and art of photography will always trump “spray and pray”.
I’ve found that the prayer part is most effective when it comes before spraying, though God takes special delights when I forget my ABCs that P comes before S. Perhaps Adobe understood this fundamental when it named it’s software PS (OK that was weak).
In The Photography Manual of Life James 1:17 tells that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
God’s in control of the light so I’ll be found on my knees seeking that light and if I come up short with a leftsided log jam histogram, my faith will still be in Him who died for me. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the LIGHT!
Know the light, every good photographer does and every bad one can – see John 3:16 for further instructions from the manual.
Have a wonderful New Year!
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