Exploring how shooting extra frames can produce stronger images

- Hey everyone, welcome to a new episode of Photo Critique of the Week. My name is Steve Simon, The Passionate Photographer and this week, going to talk about shooting a little extra. And by that I mean, you know, taking a few extra frames because in my photographic experience going that sort of extra mile by shooting a little extra often will pay strong dividends because, you know, sometimes the subtle difference between two frames could make, you know, all the difference in terms of your final selection and really kind of add an extra star to the image that you end up using.

So I think it's advice that you'll find can be very useful. So let's take a look. You know I'm an advocate of spending a little more time in fewer places because in my own photographic experience it pays great dividends and when you have a subject as beautiful and energetic as this particular woman, I'd rather spend a little bit more time before I moved on, because I don't know if I'm going to have a better photographic opportunity around the corner.

To me this picture says color. I mean the beautiful blue of the building and her dress, which fortunately has some blue in it, and the green of the can and the green of her dress. So I think, you know, yellow and blue are complimentary colors, they just work really well together. So you know, she kind of saw me, and that's okay and she was okay with it. You know, she's at the front door of her home and you know, maybe one of the neighbors says something, so I'm just kind of, you know she knows I'm there, so I can relax a little.

She knows I'm taking her picture. So I'm trying to shoot kind of a variety of images because I want to maximize this situation to give me the strongest image from it. And you know you might say the differences are pretty slight, and it is true, they're not great differences. But you know I'm always of the attitude that if you can squeeze an extra four per cent in terms of strength and power of the image, then it's worthwhile. And that's what I do, especially when you have kind of a great subject like this.

It's, to me, kind of worth it a little bit. So I followed the sequence and really my main goal is really just to get one picture. And I kind of realized that of these images, and I'll just maybe highlight these four, to me, you know, the expression doesn't change all that much in any of the four images. But I'm also looking at the body language and for me, in just without even focusing I can sort of see that the way she's kind of you know, bent over a little bit, she's kind of in the maximum amount of her laugh.

I mean she's kind of at the peak of the laugh, and that's why without even, you know, really focusing too closely and looking at her expression, I could see that this image for me, let me just get to it, is the strongest, the way she's kind of hunched over. You can still see her hand which got that beautiful blue nail polish and it's a little element but that little blue there when you look at the image, you know, really does help and matches the fact that, you know, it's a color image all about the blue.

So that's the reasoning, and that's why I think sometimes it's worth shooting a few extra images because if I didn't have this and only had the one before, chances are I'd be happy with it. But I've learned to really kind of, when you have a situation that has the opportunity to create what you consider to be a stronger image, let's squeeze all the juice out of that image that we can to make it as strong as possible. So I guess really that's the takeaway from this week's edition of Photo Critique of the Week.

And that is, you know, spend more time in places that give you, you know, great visual potential and take a few extra frames and learn from the editing process and ultimately you'll fast-track to the stronger images on your next photographic outing. Alright, well there you go. As you can see the, it was basically the same image, and I was shooting a little extra because she was reacting very differently and in the end, I'm glad I did because the difference, the subtle difference between the frame that I chose and the ones that I didn't I think made all the difference in terms of the final selection and I think the picture is much stronger because of it.

So in my experience shooting a little extra yields stronger images and that's my advice to you. Well that's it for this episode, I hope you'll join me next week in a brand new episode of Photo Critique of the Week. In the meantime get out there and great shooting everybody.