On average what would you say is your success rate when you go out to shoot? And what’s your experience level?
For myself who has a passion for photography but zero formal training and only purchased my first real camera less than a year ago, I’d say 1% of the pictures that I take are “good” or at least to the point to where I’d share them.
I know a lot comes from just going out and taking pictures but I feel like the gaps between when I go out and take pictures and actually sit at the computer and look at them is so spread out that I can never remember what I did or was thinking last time I was out shooting
In my opinion, if you consider yourself a photographer and you have enough experience as a photographer and a bit of creativity you surely “see” the photo before taking it and when you do it will have all the elements to be a good photo both technically and in composition, now if you take 40 photos and then you realize that only one is apparently qualified as a good photo, you definitely do not have what it takes to be a “photographer”.
If you have the knowledge and skill to master your equipment and artistically you can see a good composition, you have no excuse to say that out of 40 pictures you took only one or two that qualify as “good”, it should be more.
Agree, 100 percent. If you don’t like what you are seeing through the viewfinder, you shouldn’t be taking the picture. You certainly shouldn’t switch to burst mode and take 20 of the image you don’t like, hoping you will end up liking one. Maybe. If luck goes your way.
I encounter lots of people out using expensive and capable cameras. I rarely encounter photographers.
When I see someone who says he took 200 photos and only considers 5 of them to be good enough for him, I wonder:
What was he thinking when he took the other 195?
That by pressing the shutter 200 times he might have a lucky break and take the best picture of his life?
I am glad to have learned photography when those of us who had cameras only had film, because of the high cost of film and development, not only we had to learn the handling of the camera, but also all the details of the composition because there was no Photoshop to correct the mistakes.
To take 40 pictures and say that only 5 came out well was unthinkable in the time of film cameras and you really spent time learning the trade to the last details, now anyone with a f#*&#g camera who likes 5 pictures out of the 200 they took think they have talent and could be professional photographers and charge a fortune for taking pictures and be famous.
Yes, and the perfection of the technical aspects of the camera (exposure, focus, lens quality, etc.), and the very extensive correctives available in “processing,” mislead photographers into thinking they are good at it, when in fact, they have done nothing other than pointing a camera in a general direction.