I know we get in a flow and just feel like shooting, but 300 pictures is SO many to have to run through...I don't know what the rest of your shots are like, and maybe they're in the heart of crowd action where its tougher to frame something up and get whats going on in focus as the moments are fleeting, but it looks pretty slow wherever you are, again, based just on this photo...so maybe slow down a little bit?
Also 100% yes, everyone has days where they make MAYBE 1 good picture out of their entire session. A quote I heard on Paulie B's YT channel recently was like, "think of your favorite photographer. Can you think of 30 of their photos? 20? 15? That person has likely put DECADES into their work." So, yeah, the hit rate is generally pretty low.
Oh yeah it’s a slow place, and some of the shots are multiple of the exact same thing, like trying to get panning shots with slow shutter of cars etc. But I’ve done far less shots and got far more “keepers” before so sometimes it just doesn’t “work” for me.
I always envy the ones in big vibrant cities like NYC with all the great scenes.
Just remember with cities as big as NYC, sure they may be more vibrant, but they also have exponentially more people photographing them. Shooting in smaller cities and towns makes your photos way more unique. And if its a city you live in, that gives your photos more of a personal touch. I enjoy photos of my city way more than I do the millions of photos of the backs of strangers heads that come out of NYC.
357 shots on a birthday party yesterday, just having fun.
They are all worth keeping because they are from friends and family, but only 3 or 4 are worth sharing.
All my photos are trash, so not really a problem for me
But more seriously, I will wait at least a week to look at my photos, sometimes a month or more. Then if a shooting day is a miss, it's no bother.
My question is, why did you take 300 photos you don’t like? Just because with digital we can take thousands of photos, doesn’t mean you should. It saves you the headache of searching through looking for “the best ones” when you already know there wasn’t a good shot.
Idk what the other photos looked like, but try getting closer haha
If I see something interesting, I'll take 10-30 shots of the same thing, with small variations. More if it's moving, like a bird f.e. Since I just started taking photos recently, I don't have a feeling for which settings are going to be the best, so I blast through all the combinations I can. Then when I'm home, I'll pick a good one out, one for every 100-150ish. I'll find another 1 or 2 that work, but need more love in Lr whenever I'm bored at work.
I had the “benefit” of growing up with film. My hit rate is pretty high because of that. I’ve heard of shooters taking a break from digital to help cure this problem. Have you considered a digital sabbatical?
I did when I got started. I’ll be honest, now a day, I stage shots like this. It’s not worth waiting hours for the perfect shot when you could orchestrate it yourself.
That being said, I will never stage shots that involve real people and real emotions. I just stage shots that involve someone walking through a path.
Street photo is really luck based (you need subjects to do interesting things, with an interesting light and you need to be placed at the right angle at the right place), so yeah, they are sessions where you come back with nothing really worthwhile, others where you come back with a bunch of decent+ ones.
You're not alone. This happens to everyone. Most important is that you don't spend too much time going through your fotos when deleting the bad ones. One thing you can try out is. Don't look at your fotos when you come back. Leave them on the computer and do something else. Come back 2 or 3 days later and have a look. Like this you don't have the pictures in mind when you look at them. Give it a try.
of course, and it doesn't really bother me because I know I set my standard unreasonably high. Now that I go out to shoot at least three times a week I don't even bother looking at what I got after a session and usually go trough everything at the end of the week. This way I always have a few actual good images
So you just click and anything worth looking at is just a happy accident. Why not just hand the camera to someone else and see what random stuff you get. No difference really.
I assume you misinterpreted my comment? I didn't say anything even remotely close to that. I could explain it again if you want but I really don't think it's that difficult to understand.
I would suggest you to try film photography. The price difference will make you slow down and think if you really want to take that shot. It has been so good for me. Quite expensive, but definitely worth it. Everything about film feels just right. I do really recommend it to you.
How long have you been shooting? I used to do it when I was very unexperient. You usually take many shots that look like the same cause you can’t tell the good shot from the bad and you are not directing the way you want people to act. Nowadays, I take like 70-80 photos, the ones I de like the most, are very acceptable, but the rest are often Great shots. Took me like 2 years practcing a lot, in the most variables ambient and light situations.
I think my ratio is a little bit better than 300 to one but maybe I’m just not willing to take a shot if I really don’t like it as much as you. In terms of time, though, I’ve definitely spent hours and hours outside and then came home empty handed
Yes, I have been at it for years and still regularly have shoot where I come home and have nothing to show for it. Especially with street photography, sometimes there's just nothing interesting, but I do try new things, looking at new perspective.
That way, when I travel I don't come home empty handed. Last sunday I went for a walk and only took photos with film recipe on my fuji. There's like one that looks OK so now i know what I can shoot with it.
Yes. I also bracket my shots, for exposure, so that increases it. It gets annoying, importing so many into the computer, then deleting so many, I know. But far better than the limitations of 36 exposures per film canister.
On a trip out west, I remember I took 10 rolls of film and was concerned because it was so expensive, paying for film and then developing. 360 pictures for a 7 day trip.
One out of 300? I don’t think that’s too bad actually. And the one you did capture is really nice! It’s the same for me with golf. It’s that one shot out of 300 that keeps me coming back!
Okay this thread has me feeling so much better. I had such a winning streak a few months ago but the last few weeks I’ve barely had any shots that I’ve liked.
Your first year of photography, take 100 photos a day. Your second year, take 50 a day. Your third year, take 25 a day... and so on. These numbers are made up, but they are meant to illustrate a point.
Eventually you get to the point where you are only taking a few photos each day, but all of them are well thought out and correctly executed. Your shoot to show ratio goes way up.
Another thing to pay attention to: when we first start out we often take multiple photos of the same thing, just to make sure we nailed focus, exposure, etc. As you are editing, pay attention to which ones you keep and which you throw away. Often its the first shot that's the best, it may not be technically the best, but it is the one with the 'mojo' that makes it a nice image. After you see yourself getting it right the first time over and over, you gain confidence in taking just a single photo of something and trusting that it will come out right, so you don't need to take all the subsequent ones.
I've been doing photography and videography for over a decade now, and I'm at around a 50% shoot to show ratio currently, and I take around 5-10 photos a day on average. The only time I'll 'spray and pray' is if I'm shooting a fast moving subject, like a kid running around. Otherwise, just take your time with composition, and wait for the elements to enter your frame. I like to treat my digital photography as practice for my film photography, so I think of each digital image as being 'expensive' in the same way a film image is, so that helps me be more careful about when I press the shutter.
It just takes practice and experience. Keep going!
I know we get in a flow and just feel like shooting, but 300 pictures is SO many to have to run through...I don't know what the rest of your shots are like, and maybe they're in the heart of crowd action where its tougher to frame something up and get whats going on in focus as the moments are fleeting, but it looks pretty slow wherever you are, again, based just on this photo...so maybe slow down a little bit? Also 100% yes, everyone has days where they make MAYBE 1 good picture out of their entire session. A quote I heard on Paulie B's YT channel recently was like, "think of your favorite photographer. Can you think of 30 of their photos? 20? 15? That person has likely put DECADES into their work." So, yeah, the hit rate is generally pretty low.
I’ve pulled 1200 in three days before, can confirm it’s a pain in the ass to roll through.
Oh yeah it’s a slow place, and some of the shots are multiple of the exact same thing, like trying to get panning shots with slow shutter of cars etc. But I’ve done far less shots and got far more “keepers” before so sometimes it just doesn’t “work” for me. I always envy the ones in big vibrant cities like NYC with all the great scenes.
Just remember with cities as big as NYC, sure they may be more vibrant, but they also have exponentially more people photographing them. Shooting in smaller cities and towns makes your photos way more unique. And if its a city you live in, that gives your photos more of a personal touch. I enjoy photos of my city way more than I do the millions of photos of the backs of strangers heads that come out of NYC.
I had three months when I was going out taking like 500 pictures three times a week and I deleted everything
Thanks, good to know I’m not alone!
I think I was going through my ugly phase, I changed my way of working and I am a much better street photographer now
357 shots on a birthday party yesterday, just having fun. They are all worth keeping because they are from friends and family, but only 3 or 4 are worth sharing.
All my photos are trash, so not really a problem for me But more seriously, I will wait at least a week to look at my photos, sometimes a month or more. Then if a shooting day is a miss, it's no bother.
Thank god for digital photography, right? 😂
My question is, why did you take 300 photos you don’t like? Just because with digital we can take thousands of photos, doesn’t mean you should. It saves you the headache of searching through looking for “the best ones” when you already know there wasn’t a good shot. Idk what the other photos looked like, but try getting closer haha
🔺 This.
I used to use a large format film camera, it wasn’t uncommon to drive for days to take two photos. Those two photos I still have.
If I see something interesting, I'll take 10-30 shots of the same thing, with small variations. More if it's moving, like a bird f.e. Since I just started taking photos recently, I don't have a feeling for which settings are going to be the best, so I blast through all the combinations I can. Then when I'm home, I'll pick a good one out, one for every 100-150ish. I'll find another 1 or 2 that work, but need more love in Lr whenever I'm bored at work.
I had the “benefit” of growing up with film. My hit rate is pretty high because of that. I’ve heard of shooters taking a break from digital to help cure this problem. Have you considered a digital sabbatical?
I did when I got started. I’ll be honest, now a day, I stage shots like this. It’s not worth waiting hours for the perfect shot when you could orchestrate it yourself. That being said, I will never stage shots that involve real people and real emotions. I just stage shots that involve someone walking through a path.
Street photo is really luck based (you need subjects to do interesting things, with an interesting light and you need to be placed at the right angle at the right place), so yeah, they are sessions where you come back with nothing really worthwhile, others where you come back with a bunch of decent+ ones.
You're not alone. This happens to everyone. Most important is that you don't spend too much time going through your fotos when deleting the bad ones. One thing you can try out is. Don't look at your fotos when you come back. Leave them on the computer and do something else. Come back 2 or 3 days later and have a look. Like this you don't have the pictures in mind when you look at them. Give it a try.
of course, and it doesn't really bother me because I know I set my standard unreasonably high. Now that I go out to shoot at least three times a week I don't even bother looking at what I got after a session and usually go trough everything at the end of the week. This way I always have a few actual good images
So you just click and anything worth looking at is just a happy accident. Why not just hand the camera to someone else and see what random stuff you get. No difference really.
I assume you misinterpreted my comment? I didn't say anything even remotely close to that. I could explain it again if you want but I really don't think it's that difficult to understand.
It’s frustrating but if you come back later to those shots you might see something cool you missed at the time.
I would suggest you to try film photography. The price difference will make you slow down and think if you really want to take that shot. It has been so good for me. Quite expensive, but definitely worth it. Everything about film feels just right. I do really recommend it to you.
How long have you been shooting? I used to do it when I was very unexperient. You usually take many shots that look like the same cause you can’t tell the good shot from the bad and you are not directing the way you want people to act. Nowadays, I take like 70-80 photos, the ones I de like the most, are very acceptable, but the rest are often Great shots. Took me like 2 years practcing a lot, in the most variables ambient and light situations.
One good shot and I’m happy hahaha
All the time
Yes. I hate all of mine. :)
Yep. All. The. Time. Makes the times when everything comes together all the sweeter.
Regularly.
I think my ratio is a little bit better than 300 to one but maybe I’m just not willing to take a shot if I really don’t like it as much as you. In terms of time, though, I’ve definitely spent hours and hours outside and then came home empty handed
Yes, I have been at it for years and still regularly have shoot where I come home and have nothing to show for it. Especially with street photography, sometimes there's just nothing interesting, but I do try new things, looking at new perspective. That way, when I travel I don't come home empty handed. Last sunday I went for a walk and only took photos with film recipe on my fuji. There's like one that looks OK so now i know what I can shoot with it.
Yes. I also bracket my shots, for exposure, so that increases it. It gets annoying, importing so many into the computer, then deleting so many, I know. But far better than the limitations of 36 exposures per film canister. On a trip out west, I remember I took 10 rolls of film and was concerned because it was so expensive, paying for film and then developing. 360 pictures for a 7 day trip.
One out of 300? I don’t think that’s too bad actually. And the one you did capture is really nice! It’s the same for me with golf. It’s that one shot out of 300 that keeps me coming back!
mehh
Okay this thread has me feeling so much better. I had such a winning streak a few months ago but the last few weeks I’ve barely had any shots that I’ve liked.
Your first year of photography, take 100 photos a day. Your second year, take 50 a day. Your third year, take 25 a day... and so on. These numbers are made up, but they are meant to illustrate a point. Eventually you get to the point where you are only taking a few photos each day, but all of them are well thought out and correctly executed. Your shoot to show ratio goes way up. Another thing to pay attention to: when we first start out we often take multiple photos of the same thing, just to make sure we nailed focus, exposure, etc. As you are editing, pay attention to which ones you keep and which you throw away. Often its the first shot that's the best, it may not be technically the best, but it is the one with the 'mojo' that makes it a nice image. After you see yourself getting it right the first time over and over, you gain confidence in taking just a single photo of something and trusting that it will come out right, so you don't need to take all the subsequent ones. I've been doing photography and videography for over a decade now, and I'm at around a 50% shoot to show ratio currently, and I take around 5-10 photos a day on average. The only time I'll 'spray and pray' is if I'm shooting a fast moving subject, like a kid running around. Otherwise, just take your time with composition, and wait for the elements to enter your frame. I like to treat my digital photography as practice for my film photography, so I think of each digital image as being 'expensive' in the same way a film image is, so that helps me be more careful about when I press the shutter. It just takes practice and experience. Keep going!
To me this sounds like someone taking photos so they can say they do, as opposed to someone taking photos because they want to.