% 'Keeper's?

"Mardon" wrote in message
. 130...
If a slightly above average semi-pro photographer with good equipment were
to spend a day doing a general shoot of their community (no special theme
in mind), how many photos would they generally take and what percentage of
those would be keepers? I feel like I find too many things at the PP
stage
that I should have noticed at the shutter-release stage. This causes me
to
have a very low % of shots that I would consider worthy of printing or
showing to anyone else. I'm looking for some comparison numbers that
maybe
I can use as a target to improve my own on-site composition ability. TIA

I guess I'm in your category. I also walk around my community, looking for
opportunities (carrying a camera, of course). A typical walk for me yields
1-100 shots. Some walks are blah and some are stimulating. Viewing them
later is always a surprise to me ... many times the ones I had high
expectations for are crappy and vice-versa.

My percentage varies wildly, so I just give you my best wild guess and that
is 5%.

Cheers.

Mardon wrote in
. 130:

If a slightly above average semi-pro photographer with good equipment
were to spend a day doing a general shoot of their community (no
special theme in mind), how many photos would they generally take and
what percentage of those would be keepers? I feel like I find too
many things at the PP stage that I should have noticed at the
shutter-release stage. This causes me to have a very low % of shots
that I would consider worthy of printing or showing to anyone else.
I'm looking for some comparison numbers that maybe I can use as a
target to improve my own on-site composition ability. TIA

Interesting thread... considering the harsh words that have been thrown
about on the NG recently re the quality of your equipment dictating the
quality of your pictures, it's interesting to note that many of us are say
'study your craft, practise your craft, get feedback from those you respect
in your craft...' Just what I (and others) have been saying all along.

Yes, digital imiging makes it easier to stomach the high percentage of dud
images this process involves, but it doesn't take away the learning curve.

RobG

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:19:36 GMT, Mardon wrote:

If a slightly above average semi-pro photographer with good equipment were
to spend a day doing a general shoot of their community (no special theme
in mind), how many photos would they generally take and what percentage of
those would be keepers? I feel like I find too many things at the PP stage
that I should have noticed at the shutter-release stage. This causes me to
have a very low % of shots that I would consider worthy of printing or
showing to anyone else. I'm looking for some comparison numbers that maybe
I can use as a target to improve my own on-site composition ability. TIA


Years ago I had a Hasselblad publication (but no 'Blad) that said
about 1 of 100 would be outstanding. Not of just random shots, but
ones where the photog tried their best.

RobG wrote
Interesting thread... considering the harsh words that have been
thrown about on the NG recently re the quality of your equipment
dictating the quality of your pictures, it's interesting to note that
many of us are say 'study your craft, practise your craft, get
feedback from those you respect in your craft...' Just what I (and
others) have been saying all along.

Yes, digital imiging makes it easier to stomach the high percentage of
dud images this process involves, but it doesn't take away the
learning curve.

RobG


Gawd... talk about spilling mustaykes...

RobG
(giving himself an uppercut)

Mardon wrote:
If a slightly above average semi-pro photographer with good equipment were
to spend a day doing a general shoot of their community (no special theme
in mind), how many photos would they generally take and what percentage of
those would be keepers? I feel like I find too many things at the PP stage
that I should have noticed at the shutter-release stage. This causes me to
have a very low % of shots that I would consider worthy of printing or
showing to anyone else. I'm looking for some comparison numbers that maybe
I can use as a target to improve my own on-site composition ability. TIA

No matter how experienced you get, you will always notice something in
PP that you didn't see through the viewfinder. If you concentrate on
composition, you may not notice undesirable elements, like a beer can on
the ground. If you concentrate on the details (hard to see in a
viewfinder), then you might not do the composition well. That's why
good image editors have facilities to crop, rotate, mask, and layer so
you can correct these problems.

The actual percentages of 'keepers' depends on your level of
discrimination, and the purpose of your pictures. I keep about 99.9% of
my photos, but after 55 years of taking pictures, I have come to
understand that some of them are just 'capturing the moment', and they
aren't going to be artistically meritorious, or 'museum quality'. If
they record the moment, and they aren't technically flawed (out of
focus, motion blur, noisy, etc), then I keep them.

Mardon wrote:
"Annika1980" wrote:

The percentage of keepers means nothing.
*snip*

Based on your comments and Bill's, maybe I'll just caulk this off as a
'silly' statistic then. I've had some of my photos selected as POTD on
Internet sites and people often complement me about my work. The thing is,
I generally refuse to show anyone my 'bad' stuff. I was starting to get a
little paranoid about how many of my images I judge as unworthy to make it
beyond the Raw converter in Post. Maybe that's a good thing?

Don't let it inhibit your taking of pictures. Sometimes what you
thought was a lousy picture turns out to be the prize. That last
snapshot of dad before he suddenly passed away can be a real treasure....

Daniel Silevitch wrote:
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:19:36 GMT, Mardon wrote:
If a slightly above average semi-pro photographer with good equipment were
to spend a day doing a general shoot of their community (no special theme
in mind), how many photos would they generally take and what percentage of
those would be keepers? I feel like I find too many things at the PP stage
that I should have noticed at the shutter-release stage. This causes me to
have a very low % of shots that I would consider worthy of printing or
showing to anyone else. I'm looking for some comparison numbers that maybe
I can use as a target to improve my own on-site composition ability. TIA

Some numbers from my last sequence (a park in downtown Chicago after
last week's heavy snowfall):
Frames taken: ~65
Decent enough to stick on the web: ~15 (and I have fairly low
standards)
Good enough to consider printing: 2

I'm an amateur with a decent-quality P&S.

The 15 photos:
http://ri22.uchicago.edu/~dmsilev/Mi...nium_Park.html
Photos #3 and #15 (numbering starts from 0) are the two that I liked
enough to consider keepers.

-dms

That poor lion looks SOOOO cold!

Mardon wrote:

If a slightly above average semi-pro photographer with good equipment were
I'm looking for some comparison numbers that
maybe
I can use as a target to improve my own on-site composition ability. TIA

It has a lot to do with how many you CAN take. With digital I do shoot more
than I did with medium format, which I shot more than I do with 4X5 etc.
Still even with digital I rarely shoot more than 50-60 in a whole day of
shooting, many are exposure or focus bracketing of the same shot. I think
after shooting with 4X5 for several years I've learned to really look
closely before I fire the shutter to see if it's really worth taking a
picture of something. Some people like to shoot hundreds a day and we
probably end up with the same number of keepers so from a digital
photography standpoint it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to be so
careful? I does mean I can shoot RAW+jpg for a weekend and only need a
couple of 1 gig cards.
--

Stacey

"Ron Hunter" wrote in message
news:ZaqdneaVVO_WSj7eRVn-

Don't let it inhibit your taking of pictures. Sometimes what you thought
was a lousy picture turns out to be the prize. That last snapshot of dad
before he suddenly passed away can be a real treasure....

You've hit on something.

Even photos that are far from perfect in terms of composition may have other
value. Family history and historical documentation are two areas that come
immediately to mind.

I cherish a B&W photo of my grandfather, who passed away 5 years prior to my
birth. I never knew him, although my mother spoke often about him. It
turns out that the B&W photo of him, shot on an old Kodak consumer box
camera in 1946, is the only known photograph of him. Had it not been for
that one image, I'd have never seen an image of my grandfather.

I have another digital photo of a city street in my hometown--nothing at all
important, just a shot of the street. A couple of years ago a natural gas
line ruptured, causing an explosion that completely blew one building away,
and knocked out windows of just about every structure within 2 blocks of it.
My photo turned out to be the only known existing photo of the street prior
to the blast. One of my high school classmates now treasures a copy of it,
because she used to live in that building that blew up, and this is her only
photographic memento of it.

I do a lot of architectural work, strictly as a hobby, and it is amazing how
change creeps up on places. Places that one thought would never have
changed suddenly are no more. Amoco gas stations up and down the East Coast
suddenly becoming BP stations. My old elementary school being sold to a
private developer and becoming condos. The industrial area along the river,
with all those abandoned old factory buildings with the smashed windows,
suddenly being razed and the land used for luxury riverside apartments. The
old freightyard that was sold by Conrail and is now having a new municipal
service center complex being built on that land. The list goes on and on.

I started shooting photos of mundane scenes--places where I lived and were
familiar with--about 35 years ago. I now have a collection of images of
places that either do not exist anymore or places that have undergone
dramatic change. I had no idea when I started taking those photographs that
I would come to cherish them for their historic and sentimental value. I
wish that I had taken many more such images. Long after I'm gone the photos
will take on historical importance.

"Jeremy" wrote
I started shooting photos of mundane scenes--places where I lived and
were familiar with--about 35 years ago. I now have a collection of
images of places that either do not exist anymore or places that have
undergone dramatic change. I had no idea when I started taking those
photographs that I would come to cherish them for their historic and
sentimental value. I wish that I had taken many more such images.
Long after I'm gone the photos will take on historical importance.





Must be a sign of old age - I've had a bit of a bug in my head to do the
same here. Now, I'll have to.

RobG
"Just take the damn photo"