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Poll: How good a photographer are you?

Poll: How good a photographer are you?

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Marty4650 said:
Anyone reading this takes a lot of photos. We wouldn't be using this website if we didn't.

And we all have some idea of how good we think we are at taking photos. The people here run the full range from novice to professional photographer.

So my question is:

What percentage of the photos you have taken in your lifetime do you consider really great?

I don't mean your keepers. Those are just the photos you decided not to delete. I mean the photos you would post in a portfolio of your best work. You can define great as being art, or being historically or commercially significant. Just as long as they are outstanding in some way.

Try to be objective! :-D
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+1

Another fun survey!

For every click, I'd say I got a pretty low hit rate. But . . . per hour, I have a reasonable hit rate. (If that makes sense.)

I figure, when shooting kids, I tend to shoot more shots for each portrait so I can go through and look for the shots where the child's expression really shines through. So I may take 10 shots, to get that 1 really nice smile or contemplative moment.

I'll also try stuff that I haven't tried before, and sometimes that stuff just doesn't work out. LOL.

But, in an hour session, I can usually get 30-35 nice shots for clients. (Just had an hour session this past weekend where we some how managed to bang out 50 great shots.)

I guess the other thing I figure is . . . if you don't have a lot of shots you're throwing out. Then maybe you're not trying enough "new" stuff. Trying different composition ideas or concepts, etc. Stuff that might expand what you're doing, but won't necessarily work the 1st time around.

:)

But as for the survey . . . there's no box for me to click, as I don't fall into any of the categories.

I don't have an insanely high hit rate (and I definitely don't win everything I enter.). I do have what I consider a reasonable hit rate, and people ask me (and my wife) to take pictures, but they pay us.
 
Not to be taken too seriously, but I went for "pretty good". Not that I think I am, but if I come back from safari with half a dozen I'm happy to hang on my wall, and I never use burst mode, and I do try not take boring pictures, so there :-)
 
Measuring how many great shots to how many mediocre ones, isn't really a fair measurement in my mind. The thing is, is that many great photographers burned a whole lot of film (or in the case of digital, memory) to get just a few great photos. I'm thinking of someone like garry Winnogrand (look him up!). He shot literally hundreds of thousands of 35mm negs and even though in his lifetime he shot a lots of really great images, his percentage of great photos to throwaways wasn't that great. In fact, on this scale he was a terrible photgrapher... and yet his work is well known to anyone who knows the history of the medium.

In the end the only thing that really matters is having a compelling portfolio of work. However many exposures it took to get there is really beside the point. Some photographers take a lot of photos to get a few good ones and others less... it's just a difference in working methods to a large extent and not any sort of indication of skill...
 
JohnJ851 said:
Today I was shooting corporate portraits and my keeper rate is very high.

During the weekends I'm out shooting motorsport (lots of panning) and my keeper rate is not that high, same goes for BIF's.

I wouldn't call the portraits great but I do get paid good money.

JohnJ
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TheChefs said:
jfw said:
Hi Marty,

I'm finding it difficult to agree with the premise of your question which seems to be: "great photographers have a high percentage of great shots (that is, using the number of times they press the shutter button as the denominator)".

I suspect folks like Ansel Adams had a low percentage of shutter presses that wound up in the "great" bin. I mean, how many times do you think Ansel pressed the shutter button in his life? And can you find 20% of those in the "great" bin today?

Just a thought.

Cheers!

jfw
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People like him would actually think and use their imagination before they pressed the shutter. That's why their keeper rate was so much higher.
Click to expand...
 
RollyRox said:
To my mom I am so gifted one
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Haaaaaaa ! There we are ! To my mom, I also was the pretiest, the most intelligent, the most anything you want. (as long as it was something exceptionnal)......

...and she was bløødy right !
 
The only one I am proud of was a totally out of the blue B&W shot that I have put in my gallery. It may not be the greatest in any sense. It is somewhat underexposed, the framing is only just OK, but it is the subject & the unrehearsed pose of the young child that made me take it. We were in Italy, Lake Garda. My wife saw it & quickly asked her parents if I could take a snap & they agreed. I had no time to alter the settings, otherwise the moment would be gone. I have since processed it a little & it looks a lot better. It is now framed & hanging on my wall.
 
I'm pretty good. I've been out of it for a long time, but I'm slowly getting my thoughts/processes back in alignment.

:-)
 
I am still learning, and have a lot to learn.

Some of my boarder line bad images probably aren't as bad as I think they are. But my good photos probably aren't as good as I think they are either.
 
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