Take 100 shots, not 1000.   Is one of them still going to be an excellent composition?  I have heard this statement from non-photographers and photographers alike:  “Shoot 1000 photos and you are bound to get a good one.”  I think, yes and no.  I do not shoot a memory card full trying to get one subject right.  Yes, I do shoot more than once but do not depend on numbers to somehow give me the scene with composition and lighting the way I want it.   I have seen card after card of vacation shots from someone else and among the vast number of photos were how many shots to grab my attention? Zero, zilch…none.  All were snapshots and memories certainly valuable to them but of little interest to others.   Then again, a good professional event photographer may likely shoot hundreds of images looking for the cream of the crop to tell the story, not taking a chance of expression or movement or light being wrong or the very special second in time being missed because it happened a second later.

With all of that said, looking back at my better photos, the ones I put at the top of the list and am actually proud to claim are generally “in camera” composition.   The eye put the scene in the frame to start.  Of course, editing for color, sharpness and levels will follow.

I believe it a silly notion that 1000 shots will give a rank beginner an excellent photo and that “everyone is a photographer”.  Sure, with cell phones and very capable little cameras, many people do take photos but I do not believe many have crossed that line from snapshootist to photographer.  This is no criticism but recognition that folks like to take fun shapshots, see their faces and faces in places, regardless of the artistic value of the photo.  They do not intend to be serious photographers in the first place and have fun snapping away.

A second comment I hear stated as a compliment is this: “This is a nice photo. You must have a really good camera.”  Enough said on that one. It is meant as a compliment and at that moment I am not going to argue that the eye behind the camera is more important.  The fact is, I do have a decent camera, a bit dated but quite good for me.  And…yes, I do have Lightroom™ and Photoshop™ along with other image software.   Still, I believe I could go on a photo field trip with that person and they could come home with a new perception of composition and “seeing” the shot in the first place. 

Still, those of us who do try to do something better in photography can always do better.  The majority of folks on the streets with cameras might not be concerned about that at all…in a world of fun photos, snapshots rule and that is fine.   Do 10000 snapshots and get 10000 snapshots and enjoy each one !  I will take my “really good camera” and hope for a masterpiece which has eluded me so far.  Humm, looking at folders and folders of images, a few more fun family snapshots would be nice.

This is early morning ramblings, nothing more. Comment if you want to do that.            Tom.

I am with you Tom. I would like to go for gem captures and they are all around.

thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Tom, I was talking to my girlfriend a while back and, off handedly,  said something like... " I may take a thousand shots trying to get that ONE good shot I'm looking for." A few weeks later, at dinner with some of her friends, she says... "Manning is a photograher. He might get one good shot out of a thousand."  OUCH!

It's been a running joke since. (but, dang it)

manning

Hee hee..thanks for this one.  Sounds like the same thing but...is not at all (is it?)  Tom

Tom, you summarised my thoughts exactly. I still do not get shutter happy with my digital cameras on ground shoots, usually I do have time to search around for the compositions which work and prefer to keep postwork on the pC to a minimum. Getting a grad filter last year was another step to on the spot creation of balanced images.

The exception being action photo assignments.

In the air I have to remind myself to take more when we go to new places.

And shooting a 1,000 in a session wears out the camera faster !

There has been another photographer who put it in a slightly different way:

"Your first ten thousand photographs are your worst"  -  Henri Cartier Bresson

In the digital age it is easy to shoot the memory card full.  It only costs you batteries.  When I had to spend hours in the dark room developing the film and then printing it out, I was A LOT more selective about the shots that I took and constantly questioning myself on why I was taking a particular shot.

I have since traded my 40 year old darkroom and 35 mm cameras for an acoustic guitar, but I am thinking of dusting off the Mamiya C3 and finding a nice tripod for it so I can go back to that magical world of film photography.

I would not give up digital photography because it lets me be so cavalier as to be able to take the snapshots that I would not take with a film camera.  The film camera makes me focus a little bit more on each shot since it is much more expensive to produce an image that way.

To shoot a hundred or a thousand shots in either medium hoping that you will find a gem among them is crazy!  To shoot a hundred or a thousand shots with the intention of making them all gems is a better attitude to approach the mission with.

Sorry for being so unfocused in my reply.

Your focus seems on target to me.

I agree with the OP. On the other hand, if you're shooting digital and only taking 1 or 2 shots of any given subject, I think you may be wasting opportunities. There's probably a happy medium in there somewhere, but it will vary according to the photographer and subject... That said, I've never taken 1000 shots of any single subject.

I've heard the "You have a nice camera" remark, too. I had to respond truthfully: "Well, actually, these shots were taken with a 4mp point and shoot." Some of my best photos were taken with a Canon Powershot.

I've also seen some remarkable things done with an iPhone. The eye is what really matters. But... a decent camera plus photoshop will certainly help to correct a lot of errors. The thing is, you have to know you made those errors before you can fix them. Most people who take only snapshots just don't see these things.

Moriador, your last paragraph is a lesson for all newbie photographers. Well said.