One shot and move on...

I'm back on the beaches again, working myself up for the low spring tides predicted for Poole Bay early next week, shooting anything I like the look of. At this time of year they are largely deserted, despite the good weather, as kids have returned to school and the holiday season is all but over. It won't be long until I get the place to myself again.

As yesterday, I am working to a specific brief that I have set myself, and this is based on the work ethic of American photographer William Eggleston: ordinary subject-matter, and only one shot of that subject before moving on to the next. My usual approach is to take a series of photographs of any given thing (assuming that opportunity exists) - 'working the scene' - as it is known. It has the obvious advantage of being able to select the shot that works best when the files are opened on my computer screen, but that alone has its drawbacks. I am sometimes faced with a sequence so similar in characteristics that it becomes quite difficult to select just the one. It is rather liberating to take a different approach once in a while, and work quickly.

This was, once again, brought home this morning as I began one of my ruthless edits of unused RAW files residing on my hard drive - languishing there since May. I deleted nearly a thousand pictures into the trash, and I am still roughly half way through the process. It is a tiresome business that is best avoided by good housekeeping, but with me that is easier said than done. I would rather be out taking photographs that stuck in front of my iMac.


24-70mmf/2.8G AF-S Nikkor. 1/400 second at f/8. + 0.33 EV compensation. ISO 400


© 2012