How many pics snapped does it take before you enter the overkill realm of the spray-n-pray approach? Resist the digital temptation to spray-n-pray! Instead, make the experience a QUALITY experience, rather than simply a QUANTITY experience. And don't overwork your model.
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Jimmy,
Thanks so much for this post. I have to admit that sometimes I get carried away during a shoot because I really like what I am seeing and just start firing, asking my subject to make slight alterations to her pose, or I change my angle, etc. Does this ever happen to you? And if so, how do you get away from that “moment” and back to minimizing your shooting as you mention in this article?
Hey Richard! It does happen with me, especially with models whom I’ve developed something of an instant rapport with. Because of that rapport, I’m apt to stretch the shoot out a bit. That doesn’t always translate into more photos — although it can sometimes do that — but instead, spending more time shooting. The additional time is often the result of more-than-usual fun interactions between the model and myself. In other words, we’re both having such a good time, we end up spending more time than usual shooting. That additional time may or may not result in more photos.
Wonderful post this week. To answer the question i would say that it really depends on the client. Some of the websites that I’ve shot for also fall into the Playboy philosophy and have requested as many as 300 to 450 images submitted to them so they can pick out their favorite 45 to 60 shots that they plan on publishing. In my personal work, I try to behave as if I am shooting film and purposefully limit myself in the number of shots. I shoot about 50 to 75 captures per look but will max it at 100. If I can’t get the winning shot I want in that time I move on. Obviously there have been exceptions such as one of the other members of production noticing something amiss with hair or make up or if the model just didn’t feel that she was at her best and asks for more chances to give the winning pose. I feel that purposefully limiting my shots beforehand forces me to slow down and concentrate. There were only 150 images total shot in the session I had with the model in the example image.
Hey Dru! Certainly, if a client asks for more snaps than I normally would shoot, I’ll oblige. More often than not (when that happens) they don’t end up with a greater number of stand-out keepers, they simply end up with more pics. There are some clients who seem to value quantity along with quality. If/when I end up working with those clients multiple times, they eventually become more trusting of my ability to know when I have what they really need. When I was shooting film, a lot of my clients were looking to be able to put together a good 20-sheet for publishing and marketing purposes, i.e., 20 chromes in a sleeve they could use for a variety of purposes. Those 20-sheets were selected from anywhere between two to four rolls of 36 of chromes. When I’m shooting for myself I’m more like you and, generally, end up with somewhere around 75 captures, plus or minus. Course, when I am shooting for myself, often just for fun, time is much less of an issue. It’s a bit ironic that, often enough, the more time I have to shoot, the fewer images I seem to snap. Go figure.
I learned the lesson about spray and pray with the fourth nude model I worked with. I had scouted locations, but I had no clue about the poses I wanted her to take in those locations. I also had no thoughts beyond “showing a beautiful woman without clothes” as what I wanted the resulting photos to convey to the viewer. I did at least have reasonable technical skills regarding balancing fill flash and ambient light and other aspects of acquiring an image. I took well over 700 images of her in 5.5 hours of working. My problem came when I went to do culling and then editing. If I spent 30 seconds on average to decide if a photo was worth keeping or not, this task took nearly six hours. Then there was the editing of the remaining images. The images that made the final cut were 144. If I spent five minutes per image editing, then this is an additional 12 hours of work. Spending hours looking at photos of a beautiful woman is at least one of the more pleasurable ways to spend time.
What I learned from this is that digital images come with a cost. That cost is my time. Now, when I have a photo shoot lined up, I have a plan for what I want to show, ideas on poses to show it, thoughts about how to light it, etc. This is not to say that I am fixed in what we are going to do, because sometimes the model has something great to add to the ideas we are working on or how to convey it. In fact, these are my favorite models to work with.
My rate now is about 20–30 images per hour of working. The good news is that the ratio of good to bad ones is also far higher. In other words, I am taking fewer images but getting just as many good ones as when I did “spray and pray”.
The photo attached to this comment is from the shoot where I took well over 700 images.
p.s. The model is Stephanie Ann, OMP#286383, MM#391890.
Hey Kenneth! Most of my clients either have their own art departments or they employ others to do the post work. As such, I simply turn in burned disks of what I’ve shot. I usually do one pass over the images before burning the disk(s), culling blinks, misfires, that stuff from the captures. I learned a long time ago that keeping those post people happy with my work increased my chances of being hired again (and again) by the client. Turning in, say, 700 images wouldn’t make me very popular with those post people because of all the additional work I was causing them. (As you described in your comment.) For me, I’m only as good (or not) as the art department folks say I am.
Excellent post Jimmy. Though I’m hardly a spray and pray shooter, I still think there is value to slowing down and thinking about the shots. It always seems that when I’m more deliberate, I have fewer, but better images. On a related note, out of the 100 or so that you take in a set, how many are delivered, or expected to be delivered, by the client?
Joe
Hey Joe! “fewer but better images.” Yep. That’s what I’m talking about! P.S. I give them all to my clients, minus a bit of editing for blinks, misfires, that stuff. I’ve had clients’ post people, when making (as an example) some packaging, cut-and-paste a model’s body parts from multiple images. When that happens, the images they lifted a body part from to use on another image might not be a good image from the perspective of pose/expression/that stuff, but they were still able to use the image, leastwise a part of it.