Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/04/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Define "success." I recently edited a portfolio from my past two years work. I started with just under 900 rolls of film, about 32,000 pictures and ended with 41 pictures. However, I generally figure my "hit rate" to be about one shot every three rolls or about 1%. But one has to consider the editing process. I edited my 32 thousand pictures as I went along so that when I sat down to do the first cut I was only working with about 3 thousand frames. Then from those I selected about 300 that I scanned and made into work prints. From those I was able to (with my editor's help) pick 41 that worked together as a portfolio. But the most interesting thing is that when I'm making that first rough cut - the 1% - some of the shots are isolated one-off pictures of fleeting subjects, but many of them are one frame out of 5 or one frame out of 25 or more of the same scene that I had the time or opportunity to work over in many different ways. And there are static subjects that I have to return to over days, weeks, or even years, before I feel that I nailed it just right. I wouldn't work a scene over and over if I didn't know that I already had one pretty good picture. Getting back to those one-off, opportunistic photographs, I believe that experience gives me the advantage, weighs the odds in favor of my success, and the cost of experience is film. I don't think it's possible to waste film, or if it is possible it must take great effort! Gilbert On Wednesday, April 23, 2003, at 11:41 AM, Kit McChesney | acmefoto wrote: > So take heart. Your "success" rate could and should be better than > 0.05%. If > not, something is terribly wrong. > > I would also venture to say that if it takes 20,000 shots per story, > someone > is wasting lots of film, and maybe the photographers aren't that good > after > all. I'm sure if I took 20,000 shots (and I don't consider myself a > half-bad > photographer) I could get five or six pictures, or even a dozen (most > National Geographic stories don't have much more than that) that would > pass > muster for just about any publication! Even National Geographic! - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html