Day 93: Less is More

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 400)

Bigger, isn't always better.

It dawned on me whilst I was writing code in the early-hours of Saturday morning (no pun intended).  For the first half there was just straight coding, splattering as many lines of code as was necessary to get the program to work.  Thankfully there weren't any sort of major SNAFUs or hiccups in the process, and the program now largely works as was necessary.  For the next few hours after that, I went to work trimming down code.  A line here, a line there, every line cut felt like an accomplishment.  My Computer Science teacher in High School introduced us to the concept of KISS in class (Keep It Simple, Stupid), and it's something that's stuck with me ever since. 

Not suprisingly, this concept has wormed its way into my photography as well.  I came to this realization rather late; about nine months after picking up a DSLR and right after I had shot three CCSA (Chinese Christian Softball Association) softball teams' worth of games for the season that summer in Toronto.  Several times I foudn myself burning out during post-processing; about 90 to 120 'keepers per game'.  I shot about 30 games.  Yeah.  The math ain't pretty.  

I think Scott Kelby put it best when he said something along the lines of displaying a dozen or so photos out of a batch of 100 or 200 makes you appreciate the select ones more.  In exercising greater scrutiny I come away with less, but feel I have a more desirable end result - one that I'm proud to display.  Most of the time I don't show about 75% or more of what I shoot.  A lot of the times it's because that one shot out of four was part of a four-shot burst.  Other times, there are just plain bad shots caused by the camera or the dufus behind the camera (never did like me much, har har har).  It gets to the point now that I generally don't give as much attention to online galleries or albums that are just a slew of the same photos shot over and over again.  Having already been asked to shoot for a friend's team, I look forward to the upcoming CCSA season(it's 30th!), and seeing some of the great folks I haven't seen in a few months.  In that sense, some things won't change, but I'll definitely be keeping fewer photos.  Sure, I won't have hundreds of photos capturing practically ever major and minor event during the game, but I'll definitely have a lot more fun, save a lot more time, and come away with more memories.

In concluision, shoot more (with digital, it's free anyway!), but keep less!  No one needs to see the shot where the flash didn't go off, or the one where everyone's face got smeared because the camera automatically picked a slower shutter speed.  Keep the memories, not the clutter.  After all at the end of the day it's probably that handful of shots that you're going to remember, not the other hundred.