Ehh ... it's Sunday. Late afternoon and I was thinking about photography having had my head buried in some editing for the last couple of days. So ...

What I was wondering, thinking about is ... when I've seen a wonderful photo/image on the site here ... how many shots did it take and were sifted through before the upload I viewed was decided upon?

Care to share and link to a specific shot in your gallery?

Think it might help all of us in understanding what transpires behind the scenes and put some things into perspective.

Good Topic. What I perceive to be a Wonderful Image and what others think seem to be a Horse of Two Colors. Case in Point.
Green Acres. I know some will look at this post and not like the Composition or don't like Landscape Shots, or even find faults within the image. Too much light, not enough light, Should have cropped this out. Whatever.

I loved the scene the minute I saw it.
It was early morning around 7 and the Fog was burning off as the Cattle Grazed. The Zig Zag of the Meandering Canal, The Shadows from the small hills and canal bank. Fish jumping. Fog still lingering in the background as the Foreground was clear as a Bell and Filled with Color. The Light hitting the Fence Post just so.
I took at least 50 shots from different angles, camera settings and focal lengths. Finally Chose the Fourth Image I had taken out of 50 . Thought then as you say, a "Wonderful" Shot or Image.
Very little Post Work at all on this Image. Almost as it came out the Camera.
But according to my peers here on Caedes it was NOT. Only a Couple of Commenters saw what I saw in the Photo and the C-Index showed a 51 Rating.

Until today I still think it is a WONDERFUL IMAGE regardless of Who would have Shot it.
Sorry Les, I may have gotten off Track a little.

Well That's My Perspective Behind The Scenes of An Image.

What Do You Think About It ? Is it Wonderful ?
Oh, Sorry, I Forgot.........51 Rating ! LOL.

NEXT !!!

E J

/\ Case in point /\ ... and moral to the 'story' ... don't lose your sense of humour. :o)

All that you make mention of that attracted you to pressing that button Ed, I agree with. I particularly like the zig-zagging canal and the leadings line that it provides within your composition.

Perhaps, the fog is mistakenly at fault for the response in the booth?

That aside ... thanks for sharing the behind the scenes stuff.

The thought behind this thread is to provide encouragement to the novices. In that, what they do see on our beloved site here is the result of lots and lots of time and effort. And of course, as a result of those expenditures ... comes experience.

Want to lower the bar on personal expectations, for the first starters or new photographers ... in terms of results and demystify some of the processes and thinking that goes on behind a 'great shot'. Simply stated.

I don't believe and I think that this is borne out in reality ... that even our resident heavyweights simply just click once and then upload. Your image and accompanying words is a good example of that.

Even then, 'results' are not guarateed. That's an aside to the main topic however.

Right ... anyone else care to weigh in?

I'll play :=)

Sun-Kissed was a one-shot, taken on my way home from a 2 hour out of town trip....stopped to get something cold to drink and found this tulip. Shot was taken with a 2.1 mp camera, zero post-editing except for resizing (I didn't even have a photo-editing program at that time:)...had not joined caedes.net yet and had no idea what I was doing.....still my most favorite image to date since it led me to explore photography, having joined the site :=)

IN a side note, most of the images that I post here are one=shots...it seems the longer I fiddle with shooting something, the easier it is for me to mess it up! I might work with WB shutter or aperture....but I usually note those that I do it on :=)

/\ Show-off.

:oD

Thanks Mimi. Serendipity ... another factor that some times plays into a 'great shot'. :o)

Because I hunt for perfect light (an elusive little bugger), most of the shots I upload cannot be the result of multiple attempts. Perfect light only lasts a moment. On the other hand I shoot a gazillion different subjects in different lighting conditions, and I delete hundreds of images, before I find one that's worthy of Caedes. My rule of thumb? When it's noon or it's cloudy leave the camera at home, and go out and enjoy the world. When it's cloudy all my photos are awful, and at noontime, shadows just never seem to cooperate.

Oh, another rule is to shoot the original in RAW format, then use Photoshop's quick edit feature to really make them pop.

Because I am a TRUE amateur, no special lens, No special equipment, just a Fuji Finepix s700, It tkes me many shots to get an image the way I like it. Now playing around with the editing is another story. Still teaching myself on that one. Any way, it took me 25 shots to get THIS
image. It is one of my personal favorites and even though I have never made the perm list, I still enjoy doing this and I do it because I love it.

Just ONE, I got Real Lucky. Right Time, Right Place.
GOTCHA.
Although it took an hour an a half drive to get there and nearly two hours of searching through the swamp to get a decent shot. But I think it was Worth the Effort.
Got a couple other shots that day but this one was by far the Best of the Trip.

E J

Honestly, what I try for the most is FOCUS. As Crisp and Clear as I can possibly get it. If I see a shot I like, I'll take 3-4 shots of it, at little different angles.

Like Regmar said....Lighting is really critical too. Being just an amature, I try for the best shot possible with lighting, speed and F stop. But I rarely get a shot I will upload without running it thru Photoshop.

SHARP focus is the most important thing for me personally. Once I got that, I can do about anything else in Photoshop.
My goal is an excellant, colorful Sharp crisp Image.

I so admire the "purist" photographers who do it all with filters and just the camera and lens. THAT is a true art. I'm just really a "manipulator". :-)

BTW...
That "Gotcha" is a GREAT Capture EJ!! :-)

*takes notes*

Thanks everyone for your sharing your thoughts. I find the discussion to be ... illuminating. :o)

A lot of times I come up with the shot I want in my head, set everything up, etc. and take the shot. Once I'm satisfied with that (be it 1 shot or 20) I usually change settings, change my position, change composition, etc. to try and catch something I didn't think of or see at first.

While I'm usually satisfied with how my first shot came out, so many times I've found that the shots using the latter "strategy" are just as good or even better.

Just thought that was an interesting thing and I'm curious if other people do the same thing.

You know bean, I do that too. I see a shot in my mind, then I go home, get the camera, tripod, and filters, then go back, set up, and start snapping. I adjust my camera's settings and focus, try different angles - then I see something way off to the left that I didn't even know was there. I shoot it a couple of times and upload it, and everyone says that's the shot of a lifetime, and all those shots I took of my primary subject are forgotten like yesterday's fish and chips paper.

This one took about 100 tries to get it decent, even using a tripod. And I still tweaked it in Paint Shop Pro.

Nice shot Emily.

Looks like it would be a lot of fun to play around with the DOF on a setup such as your "Bubblicious". Your presentation and choices work very well to my eyes.


Ahh, ok then ... some times, one gets lucky behind the lens and has a photographic guardian angel looking over one's shoulder ... and then ...

Well, hey ... the guardian angels' union is quite active. Break times are mandatory. :oP

Just kidding, of course.


Colour tweaks only in PSP, Emily?

Aside from that, and has been mentioned many times ... if the post process work is hard to detect? Mission accomplished. :o)

Color tweaks and a clarity filter, and the border. :)

On one particular setup I shoot about 3-10 frames. I have been doing lots of portraits lately too. Mostly kids. They move really fast too so keeping the camera in burst mode is important for me. As far as corrections I use the auto-exposure adjust in Aperture sometimes. It only works if you shoot RAW though. My recent post "Profile" I only took 3 shots. Others from the same day i have about 6-9 of though. Our boy is a mover these days!

So how's something like 50 images in 2 years rate? Twenty-four of which I saved as some kind of record of my frustration. Why I kept trying to shoot hesperaloe where it grew, I truly do not know since after only the.... ummmm... first 3 months?... it was obviously a dumb thing to do. If I shot film, I probably would have stopped. But digital mistakes are free, so I kept making more.

When the image linked above uploaded, I about fell off my chair. Three others from that morning were also good. Two weren't as tight and their depth of field wasn't as well placed. The third featured two blossoms in focus, both at what struck me as slightly awkward angles. The bokeh was a blessing -- looks like a studio backdrop instead of a messy garden and that surprised me all the more because I'd gone to f/10 (I'm typically an f/5.6 masochist).

Edits were very, very minor -- a little "curves" adjustment layer tweak in Photoshop to lightly heighten contrast and some dragging of the bokeh at the far left side of the image to make a wide-screen version without having to crop or crowd the plant. I debated blurring the flower in the background a little more than it already was so that it wouldn't compete with the in-focus flower and decided to leave it alone. Every time I look at the image, though, that option shouts at me again.

Well, suppose I am stating the obvious here, insofar as resurrecting this thread ... in that I found this discussion shed some light on the time and efforts expended to get 'the shot'.

And in turn, I found this discussion to be illuminating, informative ... and interesting reading. And as stated somewhere above, perhaps might temper the frustrations of those new to the craft or just starting out.


Hopefully, I am not embarrassing Garrett; aka garrettparkinson by doing this ... however, to give you some idea of what went on behind the scenes of his "Class of 2009":

"The light truly was a challenge.

If the bird was the center of a circle, only 90 degrees of the
circle was accessible by trail. The other 270 degrees
was all native vegetation or blocked by other trees.

I had to walk my 90 degrees to find the best camera angle.

Most of the 90 degrees had too much blue sky that would
have back lit the shaded bird. I was able to find a sliver
that had mostly green leaves and only a little blue as the
background.

I sat with the bird for maybe 30 minutes hoping
that it would turn, so as to capture a frontal. I had to
settle for the turned head. I guess it was giving me the
cold shoulder and wanted to be turned in a direction to fly
away from me and not toward me."


Anybody else have a story to share with us?

I thought I knew what I wanted but 163 shots this afternoon did not produce it. Then the rose I was using wilted in the 28 degreesC heat.
So I left my bits a pieces and went away muttering dire things about the person who suggested the current contest subject and decided I should give up on the idea.
Went back and hour later with a new rose and took one shot which was they way I wanted it. Wondering now if a bit of muttering did the trick lol . . or maybe the light changed . . . and can I say 164 shots or was it just one?
Final shot

"164 sounds much better, methinks ... 1 shot sounds, ohh.. I don't know ... a bit showy?", muttered the one who had suggested the current contest topic.

:oP

Nah,not showy, just proof that I have hundreds and hundreds of failures, and anything that turns out halfway ok is just pot luck.
My highest scoring image was a one shot pot and that was 4 years ago. I live in hope it may happen again.