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Comment by LandR | Hacker News Reader

I love photography, but I just don't think I'll ever be good at it.

I think I just don't have an 'eye' for what makes a good photograph.

I have taken some photographs I love, but they aren't technically good and are only good to me (because of the memories with the photo or who is in the photo).

It's annoying as I love it, and I love going out and practicing more. I've read lots on composition etc and how to use my camera but I find it so hard to actually picture the scene in my head and what will make a good photo.

Also, what are peoples throw away rates like? If I go out for a day with the camera and take say 20 photos. I might save 1.

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> I have taken some photographs I love, but they aren't technically good and are only good to me (because of the memories with the photo or who is in the photo).

This is a dilemma of lots of people who shoot professionally - they have photos that they want to keep because of the subjects/moments/memories which are objectively not as good as the photos that could take with the same subjects/moments/memories if they had approached them more as the professional shoots -- they did not.

The solution to that is simple - two different collections. One for the 'Personal photos' and one for 'Excellent Photos'.

> It's annoying as I love it, and I love going out and practicing more. I've read lots on composition etc and how to use my camera but I find it so hard to actually picture the scene in my head and what will make a good photo

Never take one photo. In fact, never take two or three photos. Take dozens photos even if you are just tapping a button on your phone camera app. Move phone left. Move it right. Change angle. Move closer. Move out. But keep pushing the button. After that pull the photos for the same scene into a strip and do an edit. First cull obviously bad photos - out of focus, washed out background if you did not want it, weird dude sucking on his thumb in a corner etc -- you took a dozen photos of nearly the same scene so it is not like you don't have a room to cut. After that do a tennis tournament. Compare two photos side by side. Pick a dinner. Delete the loser. Walk this down to 1 photo for that scene and be amazed at how much better that photos is than the one you thought you were going to get.

> Also, what are peoples throw away rates like? If I go out for a day with the camera and take say 20 photos. I might save 1.

If you have people in the photos, then keeping one in twenty for a day of shooting is a very high and unnecessary precious keep rate ( please don't take it the wrong way ).

> After that do a tennis tournament. Compare two photos side by side. Pick a dinner. Delete the loser. Walk this down to 1 photo for that scene and be amazed at how much better that photos is than the one you thought you were going to get.

It's also great for static things with too little light and no tripod. With enough attempts, at least one of them will be a lot less blurry than the average.

In good light with static objects, I'll take a handful of shots even of the same framing. Even though one "would be enough", and nobody would notice anything wrong with it, if you take a bunch and compare them you can get rewarded greatly. The focus will never sit in the exact spot.

If you're keeping one photo in 20, you're on the right path. :) Mine is 3-5% keep rate, for studio work. I'm not hard enough on myself. The most valuable thing I've ever done as a photographer is learning to throw as much as possible away. When you're throwing out bad photos, it's good. When you throw out good photos, it's better. When you can throw out great photos, you're getting somewhere!

My suggestion is to study the works of great photographers . A lot. BW: Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Brett Weston, John Sexton,... Color: Ernst Haas, Harry Gruyaert, Saul Leiter, William Eggleston,...

Also study non-photographic books as well. I'm mostly interested in shapes and patterns, that's why I read architecture books as well.

BTW, for this learning purpose, I made a decision to only shoot film (mostly 35mm, sometimes medium format). I usually have the Nikon F2 and Minolta spotmeter ready in my bag. Whenever I feel bored at work, I grab my camera and wander around, looking for anything interesting.

By interesting, I mean anything. It doesn't have to be socially profound. It doesn't have to be 'decisive' ala Henri Carier-Bresson. It doesn't have to be dramatic like golden hour scene. Sometimes certain patterns in the window or a small crack in the well can be interesting too. You just need to see them carefully.

If I'm shooting 35mm, 10 out of 36 frames is good enough. Or if I'm shooting medium format, perhaps 5 or 6 out of 12.

Never immediately throw your bad photos. See if you can notice any mistakes/improvement possibilities.

On a roll of 12 medium format shots, I usually get 3-4 tops that I'm happy with to print. On a 35mm roll of 36 shots, it was usually around 8 or 10. So from a quarter to a third. It's been years since I intensely shot digital, but I was probably closer to to 1~5% then. Film is nice in that it forces you to really stop and think about your shot.

I'd recommend consuming A LOT of photography if you want to get better. Pick a subject matter you want to get good at (landscape? fashion? black and white portraits? etc.) and immerse yourself in the works of the greats of that field. Go to photo galleries, museums, etc., when looking at the picture try to imagine how the image was framed, what choices the photographers made; and then try to emulate a bit of what you see in your own photography.

I've almost completely given up on 35mm, going with the Hasselblad or the Fuji 690 most of the time. Or my 4x5, in which case I'm feeling lucky if I get 3 or 4 shots done in a day. I do have a digital camera, and even with that, I still can't get past the habit of only shooting when I like what I see. I don't understand at all the urge to take huge numbers of shots and sort them out later, when I can do it in my head before I press the shutter.

I still shoot a tiny bit of 35mm - mostly with a Rollei 35S, which is a wonderfully compact camera that fits in any pocket, and makes taking casual snaps when going out with friends etc. a breeze when lugging a medium format would be a pain. I am also very tempted by the Hasselblad Xpan - there's something wonderful about panoramic shots. I could get a panoramic medium format, but they're usually quite tedious to carry.

> I don't understand at all the urge to take huge numbers of shots and sort them out later, when I can do it in my head before I press the shutter.

If you're commercially shooting a sporting event/wedding/etc., I can definitely see the value in that approach. Unless the client specifically requested a film shoot, and understood the tradeoffs that come with it, I wouldn't be comfortable shooting those kind of events in medium format.

Nice on you for going 4x5. The results are heavenly - I haven't dipped a toe in it yet because you start being very constrained by the weight + size + setup time of your gear...

>If I go out for a day with the camera and take say 20 photos. I might save 1.

Most of Ansel Adam's photos are crap. How am I so arrogant to say this? Because most of everyone's photos are crap. You just see the good ones.

This was true even in the film days. Read books by photographers who worked in the film era. 1 in 20 is a pretty good rate.

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