In my previous blog post I introduced the fourth skill that I believe is essential in producing great photography. Today I will try explain another of these essential skills.
Image Selection
In an earlier post we spoke of exploring your subject in order to realise a clear vision and strong communication. It’s likely that this will result in many photographs of the same subject with only small variations between images. What we can’t do is present all these variations to our audience and expect them to select the best one; that’s our job as the photographer. I recall attending a wedding where the photographer was shooting continuously. When the bride and groom received the proofs the photographer had presented them with almost 1700 images and expected them to pick the 20 they liked best.
Being able to edit your images in order to select the best one for any particular subject is an essential skill that’s often overlooked. Let’s say we are faced with 20 image variations for a subject we have been shooting and we need to pick the best one. Which is best is quite subjective but:
- It must have a strong composition – if we can’t recognise a weak composition to weed out poor images we need to study this.
- Of all the images with a strong composition, which one conveys our vision and communication best? If we don’t know, it’s because our vision isn’t as strong as we thought it was and we need to spend more time developing this.
- If we are producing a series of images we need to ensure all the images work together. If we have one image that stands out above the rest we will make all the others appear weak. If we have one weak image it will stand out and damage the story being told.
If we really do have a few images that are similar and all very strong, just pick one. The rest of the world will never know we had a difficult choice to make. They also don’t care; they just want to see a great photograph.
I will introduce the final essential skill tomorrow.
The Lightweight Photographer 