"vrhorton" wrote: (clip) A successful professional photographer I know
says he often shoots three rolls of film to get one good photo! Using that
ratio, and presuming 36 exposure rolls, he shoots 107 failures to get 1
success and yet we expect 1 out of 1 of ourselves.(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Your point is well taken, and I don't disagree with your conclusion, but, as
a serious amateur photographer myself, I have to say this. I believe his
process, of vastly over-shooting a subject, is directly attributable on the
development of 35mm photography. The advancements in digital photography
threaten to make it even worse. And I am guilty of this myself--it is
easier to shoot lots of pictures than it is to make each one count. In the
"good old days" of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Steiglitz, when each
exposure represented a considerable investment in time and materials, they
might spend an hour setting up a single photograph. And I believe, because
they thought about what they were doing very carefully, their pictures were
better. In other words, rapid firing is not marksmanship, nor is it art.

I think the way woodturners work is more analogous to the way the old
photographers worked. We don't make a hundred bowls in the hope of getting
a good one. We make each bowl with the expectation that it will be a
"keeper." And each failure is a disappointment. Our success rate has to be
much better than one in a hundred, or we would give up...or go insane.
(Maye some of us have G)