I came upon this quote by famous street photographer Garry Winogrand
“Photographers mistake the emotion they feel while taking the photo as a judgment that the photograph is good”
– Garry Winogrand
… and tied in to a discussion I had a few weeks ago with a fellow photog about looking at each of your images right after you shoot them, this tip came to mind.
Let your images simmer for a bit. When you shoot candid images, you don’t have control over the scene. You either got the shot or you didn’t. You captured the moment, or you missed it. So do you REALLY need to see each image and every time? Sure, there are those special moments like when the drunk uncle tripped over the wedding cake… you want to see if you got it. But generally, try leaving your images alone for a bit. Let them simmer. If you are shooting portraits or something like food, you do want to be checking for sharpness and all, but hopefully you are doing this tethered to a laptop or ipad. 😉
Don’t look at them on the LCD. In fact, some people go as far as putting tape over their LCD. But there is a setting where you can turn off if your image pops up automatically after you shoot it.
There is actually a photo term for looking at your LCD all the time. It’s called “chimping”
Chimping is a colloquial term used in digital photography to describe the habit of checking every
photo on the camera display (LCD) immediately after capture.
Don’t look at them the second you get home. Get them uploaded for sure. Even backed up if you want. But wait a little bit to decide if the image is a keeper or not. You may find some beauty in imperfection
As Winogrand said, we are attached to the moment and not to the image. So give it some time for that emotional attachment to fade, and it will help you better evaluate your own work 🙂
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