{"id":19693,"date":"2014-07-26T23:39:39","date_gmt":"2014-07-27T06:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=19693"},"modified":"2015-11-01T12:25:35","modified_gmt":"2015-11-01T20:25:35","slug":"it-is-impossible-to-take-100000-bad-street-photographs-in-a-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/26\/it-is-impossible-to-take-100000-bad-street-photographs-in-a-row\/","title":{"rendered":"It is Impossible to Take 100,000 Bad Street Photographs in a Row"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stockholm,
Stockholm, 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I recently read some advice by author Ray Bradbury for aspiring writers:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Write a short story every week. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think the same applies for street photography. To change the numbers a bit\u00e2\u20ac\u201c I think it is impossible to take 100,000 bad street photographs in a row. I think it was Henri Cartier-Bresson who said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Your first 1,000 photos are your worst.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I think in the digital age, it is more like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Your first 100,000 photos are your worst\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

Assuming you shot 100 photos a day, that would be 36,500 a year. So at that rate, you can reach the 100,000 street photos mark in 3 years. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re more prolific and shoot more\u00e2\u20ac\u201c you can reach that 100,000 mark much quicker.<\/p>\n

I think it is impossible to take 100,000 bad street photographs in a row<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When I did my first backpacking trip through Europe in 2009, I took 1,000 photos a day for 30 days straight. At the end of my trip, I ended up with 30,000 photos. I ended up taking a lot of boring photos, but I ended up with around 5 photos I was pleased with.<\/p>\n

My \u00e2\u20ac\u0153keeper rate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was around 0.017%. Even nowadays, I only like 1 photo that for every 50 rolls of film (1,800 photos) I shoot. My current \u00e2\u20ac\u0153keeper rate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is 0.056%.<\/p>\n

Gary Winogrand was one of the most prolific street photographers in history. Legend has it that he would shoot an entire roll of film just walking down a square block. I even heard that he shot at least 5\u00e2\u20ac\u201c10 rolls of film a day. In that sense, he was the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153first digital photographer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

Winogrand loved to shoot. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really care too much to look at his shots. When he died, he had thousands of rolls of film which were undeveloped. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think Winogrand was the most \u00e2\u20ac\u0153talented\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or technically proficient photographer. But through his pure output of shooting\u00e2\u20ac\u201c he was able to get a handful of very strong and memorable street photographs.<\/p>\n

Daido Moriyama is another photographer who embraces this philosophy of shooting a lot. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t discriminate when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s out on the streets. He just photographs whatever interests him\u00e2\u20ac\u201c and doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really care too much about anything else.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not telling you to publish 100,000 photos to the internet. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a huge believer in doing a tight edit (selection of your work). Showing less photos is more. I believe photographers should only show their best work.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I do believe photographers should shoot a lot. Shoot a lot, then edit tightly afterwards. Most photographers I know are pleased with 1 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good shot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a month, and 1 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153great shot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a year. I think especially due to the complicated and spontaneous nature of street photography\u00e2\u20ac\u201c the same applies.<\/p>\n

So know that you are going to take a lot of bad photos before making a few good ones. Even Alex Webb<\/a> says that street photography is 99.9% failure. The only way to double your success is to double your failure rate.<\/p>\n

So keep failing in the streets. But don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be discouraged. Keep shooting. Try to aim to shoot everyday, regardless of how mundane your everyday life may seem.<\/p>\n

Photograph not just \u00e2\u20ac\u0153street photography\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Photograph your family, your kids, friends, co-workers, landscapes, even flowers if that interests you. Just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give up. Keep the snowball rolling.<\/p>\n

Take those 100,000 photographs \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and I guarantee you, you will get at least one good street photograph you will be proud of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently read some advice by author Ray Bradbury for aspiring writers: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Write a short story every week. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I think the same \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-19693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts","tag-tips-2"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/14510261230_fc7f6154ec_c.jpg?fit=800%2C530&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}