One9Design

Nearly every respectable photographer that I follow online advocates shooting a lot to improve your photography. That idea was actually the original impetus of this blog. Much of this advice to shoot a lot comes from the experience of these photographers, but some have invoked the “10,000 hour rule.”

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell stated that to be great one has to put in 10,000 hours of practice. There is actually some scientific research behind this that goes a bit further. The research shows that greatness comes from accumulating “deliberate practice”. You need to practice with specific, measurable goals and on a regular basis. You also need to review your practice to see if you met your goals. If you walk around simply clicking the shutter without any specific goals in mind you are wasting your time. You cannot just keep shooting to get better; you need to shoot with intention.

What I did not realize is that with photography you need to shoot first in order to discover your intention or your photographic vision. I did not realize it until I took a ton of shots at a triathlon recently. As I was reviewing the shots I found that I was taking a photojournalistic approach to the race as opposed to trying to catch great moments. I started with the preparation in the transition area and followed the racers through the different phases of the race. I also was most fascinated by the determination, joy, and introspection apparent on the faces of the participants. I did not consciously make this my goal but in looking at the images it is easily a recurring theme in the images.

What I believe is the most neglected and elusive element of good photography is composition. There are easily thousand of photoshop tutorials and tons of information on lighting, but not a lot of good stuff on composition. I recently finished Michael Freeman’s The Photographer’s Eye. Great book on composition and design for photography. How do you have a specific goal to practice composition? I think that going through a good book or resource on composition and focusing on one element at a time may be a good way to structure practice. The elements and principles of design as outlined by Freeman in The Photographer’s Eye seem as good a place as any. Another may be to take David duChemin’s TEN or TEN more and work through one of those principles for a few sessions and see what comes of it.

The feedback part is a little tricky. You can of course compare your work to the concept and see where you fell short. The best feedback will probably come from external sources. The internet is a great tool but unless you can find credible folks to actually critique your work it may do more harm than good.

So the next race I shoot I will take that with me and hopefully have a lot more keepers.