Esteemed Bob Walkden wrote: > Whereas more experienced photographers might take the attitude that 10 > rolls=10 subjects, at most. Again, referring to St. David Hurn (who is > actually rather scornful of talk about quantity), he says maybe 1/2 a > dozen frames/subject on average. He also says that for a 7-picture essay > he would shoot 20-30 rolls of 36-exp. 35mm. Other people's mileage varies, > of course. We have not yet talked about the opposite side of the coin, which is that, the more you shoot of a given subject, the more difficult it is to edit down to the best shot. For many photographers it's easier to make those decisions up front and not have to agonize later. It's all a question of personal style, talent, and comfort level--there's no one right way to do things. It also depends on why you're shooting something and how you go about getting your good pictures. > But the point of all this is that non-photographers, and inexperienced > photographers, tend to think that professionals shoot a lot of film at random. > It is this misapprehension that leads to people thinking that anybody can get > good pictures if they shoot enough film. I think of it more in terms of time spent. If you spend an hour shooting something, you will get better results than if you spent 10 mintues. The amount of film you shoot is really only a secondary consideration. In terms of improving, I think it's a good exercise to occasionally shoot very heavy--six rolls or more in a day, or at one event. But I also used to assign my students a "slow down" exercise--they had to clip a single short length of 35mm film and place it in their cameras in the darkroom, then go out and spend an hour deciding where to shoot that one shot. This is also a very interesting exercise, and it develops the opposite faculty--the ability to be discriminating and to consider your actions and chances of success carefully beforehand. Very few photographers will actually do something like this outside of a classroom situation. But it's a good learning exercise. --Mike - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
