It’s been waaaay too long since I’ve written some random thoughts. The crazy thing is that I have something to share on a daily basis but not enough time to put it in writing. After an extremely busy year, I am now taking a short break from traveling and I am determined to write more on this blog.
Today, as I was jotting some notes about my teaching philosophy for an upcoming recording of my podcast , I decided to share some thoughts with you here as well!
Recently, I received an email from a listener who mentioned that she heard me say several times that I am not in favor of the ‘spray and pray’ approach in photography. She went on to say that others tell you to shoot, shoot, shoot in order to get a successful frame. My response was that no matter what level you are in photography, shooting 1,000+ frames in a day is not going to teach you anything other than frustration. Yes, you need to go out with your camera as often as you can, just like a tennis player needs to practice often to get better. But it’s not about photographing everything that moves (just like the tennis player should not practice to the point of exhaustion every day either). It’s about quality, not quantity.
My job as an instructor is not to make you feel good because you got one lucky shot out of 1,000. My job is to teach you how to put more intent in your work so that you grow as a visual artist.
The ‘spray and pray’ approach will only give you a false sense of success and that is not what I want for my students. By teaching them to put more intent in their work, they learn to become discerning photographers. They have more merit in the work they produce because they don’t rely on the ‘lucky shot’.
More on this topic in an upcoming episode of Hit The Streets!
Cheers!
Valérie