Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/18

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Subject: Re: [Leica] National Geographic
From: Pete Su <psu@kvdpsu.org>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 14:08:34 -0400

On Thursday, April 18, 2002, at 01:07  PM, Rob Appleby wrote:
> I generally shoot about 7 rolls a day when I'm working on a project, 
> which
> isn't much. That works out at around 250 frames a day (if my maths is
> correct), so something like the figure you quote above. But most of my 
> time
> is spent just hanging around waiting for something to happen. Then 
> every so
> often I have a half hour or ten minute period in which i shoot a roll or
> two, or maybe I take a single shot in an hour. It's not a matter of the 
> law
> of averages, just that when you see something interesting that is 
> pertinent
> to your story, you have to be sure to get it on film. It goes in 
> bursts, for
> me at least.
>
> There's lots of reasons why you'd shoot two or three rolls to get a 
> single
> image - poor lighting, quick changes in the scene, whatever. If you 
> don't
> get it, then you'll feel like a fool, so you just have to make sure - 
> and
> even then sometimes you don't.
>

This is a great description of how this kind of photography works. In 
particular, in the nice book ON BEING A PHOTOGRAPHER they go so far as 
to claim that every excellent photographer works exactly this way, 
shooting bursts of film as a situation develops. Even in landscape or 
nature work, you'll tend to shoot a lot of film when the light is 
peaking and not so much film at other times.

I'm no pro, but I shot a roll and a half of film to get this:

http://kvdpsu.org/img/test-78.3.jpg

This was a matter of explicitly trying various compositions, and waiting 
for the light to evolve and change, rather than just shooting blindly 
with the motor.

Pete


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Replies: Reply from "Eric" <ericm@pobox.com> ([Leica] Re: National Geographic)
Reply from Ted Grant <tedgrant@shaw.ca> (Re: [Leica] National Geographic)