What 300,000 Photos Taught Me About Photography
What 300,000 Photos Taught Me About Photography
In my photography career, I have taken a lot of photos. My Lightroom catalog is approaching 300,000 images. That sounds like a lot, and I guess it is, but in reality there’s a ton of junk in there. It’s not even close to being 300,000 good photos. It’s a tiny fraction of that.
Plus, many of those are bracketed exposures. I used to shoot 3-7 image brackets for HDR on nearly every outing, which certainly adds to the bloat.
But the bigger reason it’s 300,000+ photos is that in the beginning, I measured the success of my photo excursions by how many photos I captured. I literally considered a trip a success if I came home with a lot of photos. Not good photos - just a lot of them.
In other words, I was focused on volume, rather than quality (or depth, if you prefer).
I took a lot of photos for several reasons:
I was posting on this blog about five days per week, each with a new photo, so I needed content.
I was also posting a photo on Flickr and other sites nearly every day, so again I needed raw material.
I was influenced by other photographers online who seemed to have massive portfolios, and I was in a hurry to “catch up.”
I wanted to get better at photography, and I learn by doing.
I was trying to “make a name for myself” in photography (whatever that really means).
The bottom line is this: I was new to photography. I was learning a lot and building my photography muscle. Of course I ended up with plenty of junk photos, but I also gained a lot of shooting experience in the process. So it wasn’t a total waste.
These days I still take a decent number of photos when I travel, although I’m a bit more deliberate about it. (And yes, I still shoot brackets fairly often.) But I no longer measure the success of a trip by the volume of photos I capture. Instead, I look at how many truly good images come out of it.
When I get home and start editing, I set aside the images that feel worth sharing. If that number is more than a handful, I consider the trip a success. As I’ve matured, I have found that creating a really beautiful photo is harder than it sounds, and more rare, too.
I’ve also stepped away from the five-days-per-week photo blogging schedule. It was simply too much. I don’t share nearly as much on social media either. Call it maturity - or maybe just exhaustion - but my approach has definitely changed over the years.
As my process has matured, I rely less on volume and focus more on depth. I want to create compelling photographs, not just a lot of photographs. I don’t need thousands of images from a trip. I just want to come home with a few that I truly love.
I’ve found the same thing applies to YouTube. During the beginning and height of Covid, I was publishing four or five videos per week. It was a lot of work, but I had nowhere to go and plenty of time, so I dove in headfirst. My channel grew a lot during that period, which was great - but it was also exhausting.
These days I’m slowing down and trying to be more deliberate. I’m taking my time - whether it’s capturing photos, editing them, making videos, or writing here on the blog.
There’s no need to hurry.
There are no emergencies in this line of work.
And honestly, photography feels better when you give it room to breathe.
I’d rather come away with one photograph that truly means something to me than a hundred that don’t.
Maybe that’s what growth in photography really looks like - not more images, but better ones. Not more output, but more intention.
Less volume.
More depth.
