Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[RE: [OM] To improve, take more photos.. but to improve, take fewe r pho

Subject: [RE: [OM] To improve, take more photos.. but to improve, take fewe r photos?]
From: Craig Cunningham <craig.cunningham@xxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 21:21:49 -0600
"Daniel J. Mitchell" <DanielMitchell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The only real cure is to do some serious editing, and as 
> Barry says, flex the critique muscles. 

 I'm getting that impression, yup -- I suppose what I should do is take  more
notes of which shots I like, and also which ones I _don't_ like, or some sort
of similar discipline at any rate.

> Here's a question
> for you: if you have 4-5 shots left on a 36 exposure, do you rattle
> them off to finish the roll, or do you say, wow, I have 5 more
> potential good shots left, and try to make each one a worthy shot?

 What I tend to do here is try and take a variety of shots of the same
thing, so that I can see which ones worked out best in the end -- that way I
can get the new film started sooner, but also have something to think about
when I look at the prints. 

 I think one problem I have is that it takes a lot of mistakes to pound
things into my head -- I can look at prints and think "boy, that doesn't
look very good", but the number of times I have to do that before I stop
doing the same thing is embarrasingly large.

 There's some sort of weird mental disconnect between the editing process I do
when looking at prints, and the editing process I do when taking shots; if I
could get the two closer together, I could probably save myself a lot of
wasted film.

Dan - that same "mental disconnect" (or in my case, inability to visualize) is
why professional studio photographers have been using Polaroid backs on their
large format (4x5, 8x10) view cameras for years. 

It also goes a long way to explain the overwhelming popularity of digital
cameras -- especially for the Point&Shoot crowd that aren't really interested
in learning the craft/science/art of creating good photographs. Although I try
really hard when using my Olympus C-3000z digicam to be as disciplined in
composing as when I'm using the OM-2n, I think a lot of "casual" snapshooters
love the idea of just holding down the shutter button and later deleting 98%
of the images they took. 

Another analogy -- What takes less effort, watching TV or reading a good book?

 
 - Craig



 -- dan

< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >




< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz