my [JOE] blog: the dailies of a portrait & documentary photographer. who doesn't take pictures.

doin a little weed.

Posted by jOe

At a parade this last week I snapped this over my shoulder.  It's a huddle of people passing around a fatty ("who told you that?" ...Wedding Crashers).  I was really impressed with the shot--the timing and the composition, as well as the character elements that all came together at the right moment.  I won't go into all the reasons I like this picture, but it got me thinking about what makes a great picture.  In this case (and probably much more than I want to admit right now), it's quantity.  Taking a lot (read: a Lot!) of pictures.

The laws of probability dictate that if you shoot enough pictures one or two have to come out good.  It's inevitable.  I shot almost 500 pictures that day but only posted around 20.  That about a 4% success rate.  Put another way, in 2009 I took an average of 65 pictures every day for the entire year.  It's for reasons like this that I don't feel egotistical when I remark on how impressed I am with a picture I captured.  If you only saw all the other crap... never mind.

I've learned to understand that so little of an image is truly the result of the photographer's technical skills but just being in the right place at the right time.  Of course, all the technical stuff is still a prerequisite, but at the end of the day, it's not what gets the shot.

This is kind of a random post, but I'm writing to encourage anyone who might still be looking for the secret.

It's take more pictures, by the way.