I take a lot of pictures. No Apologies Series.

When I do a shoot I don’t worry how many times I press the shutter release. If I do it 100 times in a 3 hour shoot that’s fine, if I do it 400 times that’s fine too.

I was listening to the Lens Work podcast and the host told a story about a film guy who didn’t like digital. Part of the story was how digital guys shoot so much more compared to film guys. The idea these film guys have is digital shooters doesn’t care how much they shoot and therefore don’t “get it right in the camera”. We aren’t spending time thinking about what we are shooting.

Here’s one fundamental misunderstand of that attitude. If I shoot a lot of images its not because I’m trying to find something, it is because I found it.

I shoot way more when the shoot is working. Not because I’m afraid I might miss it, or may have gotten something wrong, like a film guy might since they can’t see what they just shot. No, it is because I look at the images, they are awesome, and I want more.

This came home to me on my milk shoot. Once I got her in the pool and started shooting I realized it was as awesome as I’d hoped. Then I just kept trying new things. I ended up with over 300 images, which is a lot for me.

I’ve had other shoots where it just wasn’t clicking. I shot the image, looked at it and it wasn’t what I wanted. Wasn’t what I’d hoped. And I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Those are the ones where I shoot few images. Where I struggle to get my goal of at least 10 images worth retouching from a shoot.

So next time I hear a film snob say us digital guys are undisciplined because we shoot so much, I’m just going to laugh.

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