misleading advice

When I first picked up photography, I watched a lot of reels - those short videos where someone holds a microphone and asks the experienced photographers for advice.

The reply was almost the same: “Keep shooting."

I also watched clips where people filmed the moment they pressed the shutter - da-da-da-da-da - and then a final photo popped up on screen, with the ISO, shutter speed, and aperture.

I was like, Wow! It looked so cool.

This is how real photographers capture the moment.

But when I followed that advice, I felt exhausted. I wasn’t into any of the moment at all. I was just hitting the shutter at the subject.

Maybe a few photos came out decent, but most were just noise.

Later, when I dig into Cartier-Bresson’s philosophy in photography, I practiced more in seeing than shooting.

my understanding of “keep shooting"

You might have your own opinion on this advice.

My opinion of “keep shooting”:

1. = machine-gun shooting
2. = pursue result
3. = keep shuttering
4. = shoot endless at a subject
5. = think less

The only part of “keep shooting” I agree with is that it teaches us how ISO, shutter speed, and aperture work together, so in changeable weather, we know the setup instinctively.

Just like typing - there’s no need to look at the keyboard when we type - because we know where the keys are.

Werner Bischof said:

I never press the shutter without thinking of the people who are in front of me.

Cartier-Bresson is against shooting like a machine gun, firing at everything at front.

When we “keep shooting”, we fall into the document trap and the sham of shuttering.

Blind shooting isn’t photography.

Does “keep shooting” ever teach anything?

It trains muscle memory.

So do we keep shooting? or stop?

We can:

1. keep shooting to train our muscles
2. stop shooting to train our eyes
3. and only shoot when it matters

Practice dry shooting instead of endless shooting.