Improve Your Skills - Shoot Less!

Improve Your Skills - Shoot Less!...
PHOTOgraphy tips and techniques

By Eric Hartwell

I remember picking up my first digital camera - it felt small and unsubstantial against my sturdy film equivalent. All battery powered and no film to load - it wasn't real photography.

Within an hour, however, I had been converted as I could immediately see the images I was producing. No more waiting for the mailman to arrive with my photos and no more trips to the store.

I was converted. This freedom led me to purchase more memory cards so that I could take and download many more images.

I was shooting at will and would often take 200 or more images in a session. This was Ok because I could discard what I didn't want and try again. There was no film to pay for - the only cost was the batteries and they could simply be recharged.

I now realise that there was another cost. With all this constant snapping I was losing my skills as a photographer. Sure, I could see a scene, shoot it and make appropriate adjustments on the camera before shooting again. But I stopped thinking "before" I pressed the shutter release.

Digital had cost my skill. Or almost.

I gradually realised that I no longer viewed the scene before I put the camera to my eye. I didn't see the components in their entirity and I didn't compose as accurately as I should. I forgot to look for lamposts coming out of people's heads and didn't get the groups to all look at the camera at the same time. I relied on repeating a shot to get it perfect and when I downloaded my images I could have easily have discarded 90% or more of them.

This wasn't what I wanted in photography and the digital medium, which was such a great advance in photography, had been taken and manhandled by me. I was becoming a bad photographer.

But now I have reformed. I still take shots that I am not proud of and I still discard a good proportion of my images. But I think more than I used to in order to harness the digital medium rather than ignore it.

Now I shoot less. And by doing so I put more thought into each image. I look for the right light, the right expression, the right patterns and the right timing. I look around the viwefinder to see what is there and try, where possible, to get an image that needs little or no manipulation after download.

I ask myself a series of questions: why am I taking this shot? what do I hope to achieve? what needs to be added or taken away to make the image better? where is the light coming from, where does it fall and what quality does it have? what adjustments do I need to make before taking the picture - how can I harness the power of my camera in order to get it right first time?

I have seen an improvement in my work. I am no expert and there are plenty of people with far greater skill than I. But now I enjoy the picture taking process even more than I used to. I can capture all the benefits that digital has to offer but with the constant thought that it was I who was the photographer and it was I that observed, composed and created the picture.

Now more of my images please me. That is all I ever wanted.

Eric Hartman is a keen photographer and owner of the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and weblog http://photographyonline.blogspot.com

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