a very interesting read...

[sabbath999]

Will you marry me?

No, but I grant you permission to worship at my feet.

 

[table1349]

The expense of film is what used to keep photography in a quality over quantity type mindset. When I went digital without realising it I would go out and snap off 400 average photos and be proud of my effort. It wasn't until a few months later going through a film album that I realised my new stuff was rubbish. These days even when I go on a trip, I will snap 20-30 photos, and they'd be of much higher calibre than back when I just started with a digital.

Someone who goes out and takes 900 photos is not a photographer, even if a few of the photos are good, and especially if all 900 were kept. The problem with the internet, blogs, flickr, myspace etc. is that people think that other's want to read their crap opinions. I know, I fell into that trap a while ago. After which I promptly erased all but the technical content on my site and stopped google from crawling it so that those who were interested could use it as a reference.

GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!

This is exactly why I cherish my 30 years of film work. I am happy to say that I have not been able to break that film midset of get it right the first time and looking at the small details. Yes I still make mistakes and miss shots the first time, but I am not a spray and pray shooter. I review the shot and correct my mistakes on the second try if possible. It is also the reason that when the topic is brought up about beginning photography students having to learn with film or digital, I am firmly on the film side.

As a serious hobbist, I don't give a tinker's damn whether other like my stuff or not. The rare photo that I might post is usually because I have run into something I have never experienced and am looking for advice from those that have. I do not, nor have I ever had a public site for people to view my stuff. I'm not looking to sell stuff nor am I looking for praise. (No offense towards any that have sites, this is just what is right for me.) I have one for family and friends to see stuff that was recently shot and without the password you can't see the stuff. As I said, this is a hobby, It makes ME happy. If I made my living from photography my views on this whole subject would probably be different.

 

[Stranger]

I kind of agree with the said about taking 900 photos. As far as posting that on your photography site, it holds no ground. On the other hand, i feel just because you are a photographer doesnt mean all your pictures are meant to be "photographs". I made the mistake of taking my SLR on a higher level than my P&S. Yes much better quality and all that, but it is still a camera. I love to go out and try "photographically correct" pictures. But at the same, i might take 60 or so snap shots just because im enjoying myself or for family records.


So, do i feel 900 photos is pointless to mension on a website, but may have been very necessary for the kids photo albums.

I know for me, i will go somewhere and take maybe 150 or so pictures (im still new to photography) and maybe keep 13 for my gallery. But out of those 150, my GF will take 25 completely different ones for the memories or just fun of the image.

 

[mortallis288]

i have just started trying to sell my stuff, and i just switched to digital. i worked with film for about a year until i bought a D-80 with my graduation money. I do not think professional photographers will ever just go away or not be needed. There might be programs that will turn a crappy imagine into something spectacular, but have you seen what people can do with photo shop already? I am a TOTAL newbie when it comes to photoshop but i learned the other day that you can change your exposure of your pictures, is that not already enough. I think if people want to go thourgh the hours of labor to fix 900 pictures and call themselves professionals, but what really consitutes a professional? someone that sells there photo's for money? i would consider my self an amature, and i am selling photos for money. What i consider a professional is that they do it as a full time job. They are the wedding photographers, baby photographers, ect. So i really do not think that any kind of software or super duper high-end camera will beat out a professional photographer with a film camera.

This debat use to come up when i was playing paintball also. The gun does not make the player in paintball, so the camera does not make the photographer in photography

 

[RMThompson]

I dont see the problem. She said she took 900 pictures during the course of her vacation and would be posting some soon.

I did a wedding and too over 500. I do model shots in 3 hours that consistently run over 300.

A trip, give or take 10 days I would assume, is plenty of time to take 900 intended photographs. Assuming a 10 hour per day awake time, that is 9 photographs every hour, or one every 6 minutes. Now we don't even know what she was photographing, let's say it was a Safari, she would be snapping several dozen pictures a minute in certain situations, wouldn't she?

Now, if she posts all 900, or even considers half of them printable... there is a problem!

 

[usayit]

I honestly don't see a problem either... it is the final "product" or image that is important. The ability to deliver a quality image (or work of art) will seperate professional versus amateur.

I'm not delusional... i'm no professional but I've been known to snap away if the subject is pretty difficult. Shooting photos of little kids for their parents that just won't stay still.. for example. Its the subtle changes between frames (their position.. smiles.. emotion) that I'm interested in capturing.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Originally I was especially pleased with digital because I could continue working a particular scene - I could keep shooting knowing that had the room on my chip, and that I wasn't incurring the cost of film an development. Later I found that I was swamped by files, and that I had too many to process. I've recently been trying to shoot less, and to be more brutal during my initial review in terms of discarding shots that don't work perfectly.

That's a personal choice though. If someone wants to fire away, I fully understand that.

 

[crownlaurel]

I dont see the problem. She said she took 900 pictures during the course of her vacation and would be posting some soon.

I did a wedding and too over 500. I do model shots in 3 hours that consistently run over 300.

A trip, give or take 10 days I would assume, is plenty of time to take 900 intended photographs. Assuming a 10 hour per day awake time, that is 9 photographs every hour, or one every 6 minutes. Now we don't even know what she was photographing, let's say it was a Safari, she would be snapping several dozen pictures a minute in certain situations, wouldn't she?

Now, if she posts all 900, or even considers half of them printable... there is a problem!

Actually if she shot 900 photos over a 10 hour time frame, it'd be 90 per hour or 1.5 per minute. However, a trip to Disney isn't likely to be a one day stop. It's almost cheaper to stay a week than a day.


I took hundreds of photos on our trip to Chattanooga last week. I tried to get in closer despite only a 55mm zoom. I was trying to get better focus or better angles or better light or better exposure. I was trying to catch actively moving objects (sharks and penguins and otters). I was trying to improve my skills. I shot a couple of pictures of my kids and dh along the way and one was somwhat posed and a couple were totally fun snapshots. There was one other person I saw with a dSLR. He was taking pictures of his mother in front of everything. He had a D80 and I bet he has hundreds of beautiful pictures of Mom at the Aquarium looking at the camera.

I find it so ironic that in the "advice to newbies" threads, you read, "Shoot shoot shoot and then take more pictures." Then in the next breath you read how hundreds of pictures is a threat to photography.

 

[crownlaurel]

Rusty asks:

And what happened to the concept of memories that exist separate from photographs?

I visited Disney World when I was 10 years old. I vaguely remember entering It's a Small World, but I have no solid memories of it. I do however have a photo of me and my brothers with (I believe) Mickey Mouse. My situation may be different than most people because of the trauma I suffered in an extremely dysfunctional family, but I have very few memories of my childhood apart from the photos.


As to the article, I think it speaks volumes about our educational system if people actually believe bloggers to be anything other than editorials. Perhaps a little irony in the fact that hte article itself is exactly what a blog does...editorialize. This is nothing new. How fascinated have we been in the past in finding people's diaries or personal writings. We feel closer to history reading a diary than a history book. The internet has given more publicity to more people's thoughts and sadly it is the same people who believe mass email hoaxes who would believe a blog to be an accurate account.

I use wikipedia as a quick reference when I want to know something. I also use about.com . I take both with a grain of salt and factor in that I will be reading some editorial or bias and I need to research more than one source if I was to reach closer to the truth.

And truth is something that the conventional journalist, the professional historian, nor the blogger can be trusted to provide us. If we want to know the truth, we have to consider all the factors and discern for ourselves.