Shoot More Randomly!

Why shooting randomly will help improve your photography:

We cannot predict much.

A secret on making more photos (and accidentally good photos):

Allow yourself to shoot more randomly.

This means, shoot more ambitious and random compositions, point your camera in strange positions, photograph while walking, and shoot a lot without looking through the viewfinder or looking through your LCD screen.

I’ve been doing this much with RICOH GR III on 21mm adapter, and have been making super fascinating photos and compositions!

For example:

1. Shooting up for architecture

Shooting in the Glorya Kaufman hall at USC — beautiful lights, shot at 21mm. All shot while walking randomly, while tilting the camera left, right, and pointing it straight up:

2. Uncertain lighting situations

When you are photographing in certain situations where the lighting is a bit uncertain, just keep shooting and ‘working the scene’. Keep playing with the compositions, and keep shooting, and then determine the best shot later.

3. Discover the composition while you’re shooting

It is impossible to know what the best composition is going to look before-the-fact. Thus it seems the optimal strategy is to keep shooting and ‘working the scene’, and constantly experimenting with different and random compositions.

4. Shoot the sky

Impossible to know what the photos of the sky will look like. So just shoot the sky randomly– you will be surprisingly delighted with the photos you get!