I think I may have opened a can of worms. I recently decided to stop keeping every photo that I take. Previously, I would take 100 shots of the same subject, with the intention of keeping the best one, but then I’d keep all 100 anyway.
But now I seem to have gone to the other extreme. Upon uploading the contents of my camera to the computer, I will go through the photos of various subjects, decide that none of them are worth keeping, and nuke the whole lot. I can’t decide whether I’m doing the right thing or not.
Last month I upgraded from a point-and-shoot digital compact camera to a DSLR. I still use the old camera (Pentax Optio S30), but the new one is my main camera (Nikon D40). It’s made me realise how much more I have yet to learn about photography. Perhaps this is why I’ve been deleting so many photos lately – because my expectations of myself have soared, and my talent is now lagging behind.
Ultimately, I don’t think it matters whether I keep the photos or not. I’m taking lots of photos, I’m looking at them on a 19″ screen, I’m figuring out why they suck, and hopefully learning from that. Just think, back in the old days, people used to have to spend a fortune in camera film to get through this larval stage.
4 replies on “Leaves”
ah pete, you speak the truth. welcome to the fun-filled world of dslr! let us know when you start (inevitably) hankering after lenses.
Oh, it’s already happening. I want a lens for taking photos of the moon, and one for taking photos of a fly’s eye.
If it helps the same thing happened when we got a DSLR camera. Suddenly I take 1 million photos of everything rather than the regulation 2 I used to take with the old point and shoot variety. I’m hoping I’ll get better and stop taking 15 photos before realising that I’ve got the white balance set to ‘lunar sun rise’ instead of ‘daylight’ or whatever it should be. I still have no idea what I’m doing.
I blame that shutter sound. It’s very moreish.
Also, when you are able to take 3 photos every second, instead of 1 photo every 3 seconds, you might as well squeeze another half dozen off, just to improve your chances of getting the perfect moment. This is less applicable when taking photos of inanimate objects.