Take Your Time

I am not a professional photographer. I have a “real job”, wife and kids so the time I can dedicate to photography is limited. In the past, when I went out shooting for myself I found that I was running all over the place trying to get as many keepers as possible during the short amount of time that I had. As you can guess, the results were a lot of mediocre images. Now when I go out shooting for myself at least once a month, I try to take my time and invest this time into creating a few good images. I don’t rush as much because I know that I will go out again soon. Shifting my focus to one or two really good images (instead hoping to get a 100 amazing ones in one go), I am more intentional about: the choices that I am making photographically, my framing and the moment that I release the shutter. Trying to “work my subject” as Steve Simon would say, which pretty much means shooting one main subject from multiple angles and in different ways over time. Taking your time and trying out different perspectives can result in getting great unexpected results versus image hopping from one subject to the next, and getting very similar photos. I may come away from my photo shoots with fewer images then before, but if I have at least one or two that are great, they are worth far more than a dozen of OK ones. Choose one subject and spend your time photographing it from different angles, with different focal lengths and in different light. You will see the results and progress yourself.