Perfection is not just a snap

I regularly look at work of photographers that I admire and wonder how they got such an amazing image. As I read more and more, and talk with pro travel photographers so I understand more that they are using all the same tools as me, going through all the same angst (well may I have a little more on that front about getting the right picture!) and have often gone to exactly the same place, yet their images looked entirely different.

The light was better that day, the subject more willing, the little child with the doeful eye was just standing on the corner waiting for a photographer to pass by, right? Well David duChemin’s latest Withinthe Frame video podcast (which you can get here), is the most re-assuring and helpful 5 minutes of video I have watched in a long while.

David takes one of his images from his recent trip to India and critiques it. He uses about 20 other images of the same subject to show the shooting process that he went through. You see the subject in different poses, different compositions, different depths of field etc and as David starts to hone in on the image that he is after he shows you how his final images is created. What was really great about this video podcast was the realization that pro photographers also shoot hundreds of images to maybe just get the one that they really like. The only remaining difference is they have hundreds of good images to selct the great one from out of that mass, whilst I still search for one ood one out of hundreds!

But watch the video – it will inspire you to get out there and keep trying different angles and really working your craft.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 17th, 2009 at 7:10 am. It is filed under Worth following and tagged with David duChemin, technique. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.