Slow down - Danger??

[leicapixie]

I hate editing!
I have always hated editing a shoot.
I moved from 35mm to medium format for less, slower.
I was doing model portfolios and headshots..
Is the Rollei slow?
No! I am being careful..roll of 220 lasted 18 months.
23 of 24 exposures were worth making large prints.
Street-shoots with tiny P/S camera but seldom more than 1 exposure for image.

Is slow better, not really, but see my earlier words comment.

 

[Dogman]

I don't understand the "I go out with my digital camera and come back with 500 shots to edit" approach. I've gone on a two week vacation and never filled a single card. I've gone out for the morning and and come home with three shots on the card. And I still get a lot photos that are pretty darn good.

Just because it's a digital camera that can shoot a million frames doesn't mean you have to do that. I suspect those who do this have no idea what they're trying to accomplish in the first place.

 

[jsrockit]

Today I look at work done with modern digital cameras, including my own, and think, even after that burst of frames has been edited down to just the best one, might it be even better if we just slowed down and spent more time looking and less time pushing the button.

Could work for some, but I prefer going out on the streets and just trying and trying quickly... it is when my most unpredictable shots happen. Also, by photographing a lot I am always looking for ways to keep it fresh. AND I like editing. BUT Spending time seeing is more important than how many photos you are making IMO. Even if you walk around all day and take 400 photos...you are only photographing sparingly compared to the time walking and spent seeing. There is no one way to do photography...though many think there is only one way. There is only what works for you.

It is truly a personal decision. I think slow, contemplative photography is best for some. Of course, as you say, camera choice is certainly a reason to slow down too. You can't be fast with a large format film camera. But for others, the opposite is liberating...small camera and mobility while shooting a lot in more chaotic situations.

When all is said and done, what really matters is are you making compelling photos on a consistent basis?

 

[zuiko85]

Well, even in my old film days...wait a minute, I'm still shooting film.
OK, no matter. Even though I meter I still have a tendency to bracket exposure to get the best, most printable frame. As far as multiple frames that is my main objective. I still shoot 35mm half frame so I feel free to knock off several shots.
For 4X5 all I have been using is paper and that is cheap enough to bracket also if the need arises.

 

[shimokita]

For me: Sally Mann's wet plate collodium photography.

Thanks for the introduction... I took a look at her work including a video or two... she's good, I like her work... gives new meaning to slowing down... Casey

 

[35photo]

I don't understand the "I go out with my digital camera and come back with 500 shots to edit" approach. I've gone on a two week vacation and never filled a single card. I've gone out for the morning and and come home with three shots on the card. And I still get a lot photos that are pretty darn good.

Just because it's a digital camera that can shoot a million frames doesn't mean you have to do that. I suspect those who do this have no idea what they're trying to accomplish in the first place.

Ah we can end the conversation right here... Seriously nothing else needs to be said anyone that you didn't say... Thanks... For dare I say it common sense...

 

[charjohncarter]

Yesterday, I sent 60 frames of color film to be developed at BlueMoon. After the trip to the post office I went for a morning walk. I took my heavy DSLR and took 18 shots. All turned out to be junk.

It was almost three months to finish those 60 film frames, I'm hoping they aren't all junk. Also, when I was younger I shot like I did on my walk (thinking I could, by serendipity, get a masterpiece), but film was relatively cheaper then ($1.49 for 20 exposures: film, development, and prints).

 

[Godfrey]

Nothing wrong with going slow. Equipment makes no difference.

https://youtu.be/PFHleM14e4A

Camera used was my still wonderful Olympus E-1 DSLR. It will go as fast or as slow as I want to.

I'm on frame 10 in the latest roll loaded in the Voigtländer Perkeo II. Maybe I'll make another exposure today. It's been a week and some since I loaded this roll. 🙂

G

"Equipment is transitory. Photographs endure."

 

[raydm6]

When shooting film, I sometimes get a bit too contemplative and intensely focused and sort get into a tunnel-vision zone (totally oblivious to what's going on around me) and after taking the shot, I notice I am working up a sweat. Working a bit too hard. I need to relax more.

 

[robert blu]

I've never used burst. And as far as I'm concerned, all those modes on digital cameras--"scene" mode, "face" mode, etc. are just pointless clutter on the dial. I either use aperture priority, or manual shutter speed.
...

I take a second shot when I think the first one may not have good enough. Later, I sometimes can't see the difference between the two. It usually happens when I grabbed the first shot impulsively, and want to make sure I'm putting enough care into it, whether film or digital. More usually, a second or third shot will be from a different camera angle, or framed differently, as I continue to move around and explore. I wind up with too many shots, because I find it hard to throw away or delete the extras. I'm often not confident about which one is "best." Unless, of course, one is obviously inferior to the others.

Same approach here. I use a digital camera in the same way I use film camera, probably after more than 40 years shooting only film (before digital) this is an attitude eradicated in my DNA 🙂

I shoot a lot of Polaroid for various reasons one of which is that due to the high cost I need to shoot carefully. A few years ago I went on a journey on the italian isle ofIschia for two weeks and only brought a Polaroid camera and ten film packs, which means 80 shot for two weeks, average 5-6 shot a day! I had to be careful, keeping in mind that I had to bring back home my experience with that limited number of frames. Some of which probably had technical faults...but it was a liberating experience !

To be honest with digital I shoot a little bit more than with film, but it means 10 max 20 % more because I take more "risky" shots.

But we should not demonize who shoot "gun" style if they is made within a certain logic, if we look at the contacts of many famous (analog) photographers we can see how they were taking photos from multiple point of views or more shots for a portrait in order to find the best espresso (and avoid the closed eyes).

In this view editing becomes more and more important!

robert
PS: by editing I mean simply making a selection and discard the bad shots, not as commonly intended post processing which is a different things.

 

[Richard G]

Slowing down is maybe going slower and shooting less, but might be more of the same. I go out for a walk with a Leica and might shoot nothing. But what I do shoot is likely still the sorts of things I shoot usually. These shoots are little different whether I take a digital or film Leica.


Slowing down to use medium format or large format is more than just slower: it’s different photography altogether. On my annual coastal holiday the first year I had the Hasselblad I wanted to use the tripod and I saw subjects on my familiar walking routes I’d never paid any attention to before. Knowing the tonal subtleties I am likely to capture and display creep into my thinking about the subject and it’s worth almost automatically. The Rolleiflex, I read, has a particular effect on many photographers, some dubbing it the most sympathetic camera to human subjects. All these considerations can come under the rubric ‘slow’.

 

[PRJ]

Probably some 15 or so years ago I was at a professional portfolio review talking to an agent. There was a photographer taking pictures for who knows what and he was behind me. Rattattatt, rattatt, rattattattattatt... Finally I turned around and said "maybe take just one good one?" which cracked the agent up to no end. That sums up what I think...

It all depends on how you make photographs. Some people make them on purpose and some people make them on accident.

 

[jsrockit]

It all depends on how you make photographs. Some people make them on purpose and some people make them on accident.

Are you implying that if you shoot a lot, you only get good photos by accident?

 

[Phil_F_NM]

I hate editing stills, so I take as few photos as possible. If I want to shoot faster than I can with my thumb winding, then I'm shooting a motion picture camera.
Phil Forrest

 

[rbiemer]

For quite a few years I always had a camera with me and shot fairly impulsively. Occasionally I would have a subject i mind or a plan but mostly not. I got some good photos and a very few great ones.

In the last couple of years, I still always have a camera--the one in my phone--but I have been trying to be more intentional when I am out to make photos. Whether that means I have the 4x5 camera or my RFs or SLRs or just the phone, I am working slower and less haphazardly. I am shooting fewer photos and liking my results better.

But, most of what I like to photograph is fairly static--landscapes, still lifes, and the like--except for the light. That always changes so I do need to be decisive and, sometimes, quick. I never was much of a run and gun sort of photographer.

Rob

 

[Ronald M]

I think the same over 4x5 and digital. Why wear the camera and get a bunch of photos to cull or clog your computer.

 

[jsrockit]

I hate editing stills, so I take as few photos as possible. If I want to shoot faster than I can with my thumb winding, then I'm shooting a motion picture camera.
Phil Forrest

But this is the thing, shooting a lot isn’t always about using the motor drive approach. It could be just walking the entire day during some really good light. It could be just seeing a lot to photograph that day. I never use any continuous shooting modes, but I do spend a lot of time photographing. I love photo and I love editing.

 

[PRJ]

Are you implying that if you shoot a lot, you only get good photos by accident?

Read what I wrote. It is pretty clear.

 

[kuuan]

my main concern is having fun while practicing my hobby taking photos. Later I am happy too if anyone out there, usually on the internet, likes a photo of mine.

Happens that I have more fun when using a manual lens, purposefully choosing focus plane and aperture, but also appreciate getting the result immediately.

However I have noticed that people, of whom I take a photos kind of "on the street", are used to and sometimes expect the photo to be taken faster, and by the time I do take the photo expressions already may have changed.
That has made me think to get a fast auto focus set up just for those moments, but my preferred process of taking the photo still wins over a potential improvement of the result

 

[Dan Daniel]

In the first issue of Aperture, in the '50s I believe, Minor White has an article discussing 'post-visualization.' A dig at his friend Ansel Adam's 'previsualization,' obviously. But the idea was that sometimes you don't really know what you are doing until you are done and get a chance to look over the images.

Now this was a time when the huge number of shots you could take on 35mm film before having to change the roll or plate was still new. So running off five or ten shots quickly could be done.

Probably more than most mediums, photography has overthought the role of planning and slowness. Because getting decent photographs is so easy, we are very insecure about what we are doing, what is our role in the image and what is the technology's role.