Taking Pictures - Prune and get the cream!

Ever found yourself taking pictures and wondering if you're taking too many pictures? How many photos is enough? What should you be taking pictures of?



NB: if you want tips on taking pictures you have come to the right place. This whole site is packed full of tips and tricks for all photographers. So once you've read this article dive into the rest of the site!

While staying with family recently we soon got onto the subject of taking pictures. Bear in mind that they were about to go away on holiday for a few weeks and were planning to take their digital cameras and laptop with them.

In preparation they had gone out and bought a portable hard drive so that they could back up the photos as they went. And this got us talking about how much space on our computers was devoted to photos.

Gigabytes! In fact tens of gigabytes! That's a lot of photos. So we started to trawl through the contents of those photo folders. 32 pictures of the children playing in the wardrobe; 29 photos of a particularly nice sunset; at least 17 pictures of the last birthday cake from every angle imaginable.

And then there were those where you could see someone had been taking pictures out of sheer boredom. Does anyone really need 12 pictures of their desk lamp!!!

So are we overdoing it?

We're all of an age where we remember film photography and in those days you obviously put a bit more thought into what you were photographing.

If the photo wasn't worth taking, you didn't bother taking it. If it was worth taking a picture you took one or two and took your time getting it looking just right.

Not so with digital photography. Here we all are snapping away happily taking 15 photos of that rather nice looking fruit bowl.

So my thoughts for this article were sparked by this – taking pictures that are really not worth taking in the first place.

How to improve your picture taking success.

I think we would all benefit from stepping back from our photo taking and consider if it is really worth the effort. If it is, let's think a little before we press that shutter button to see if we can't get a better angle on our subject.

After a bit of practice I reckon most people could evaluate a scene and decide within just a few seconds whether it's worth a shot or not.

Mass picture taking caveats

Now I've said that, I have some caveats. A special occasion – why not just keep on firing away. A big trip? Go for it – snap away!

But surely it's then worth an hour or two after the event to go through and separate out the wheat from the chaff?

Again, with a bit of practice I bet everyone could prune their collection swiftly and not loose any of the essence of the event.

32 pictures of the children playing in the wardrobe. Cut that in half, 16 pictures will still be more than enough and that hard drive will last twice as long.

Thanks for reading and as always please feel free to comment if you wish,

Darrell.