How many times have I read exhortations by ‘teachers’ of photography that the aspiring photographer should take more pictures, use more film, carry more digital storage?

I always flash back to my mother telling how she once met George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950). In 1938 she had been passing a few idle weeks at the Dorchester opposite London’s magnificent Hyde Park (the park remains magnificent but, alas, the hotel is now owned by Arabs whose kin are the only ones affluent enough to stay there) and on one occasion had the good fortune to meet the humorist and playwright. She described him as tall, gaunt and very distinguished looking. In addition to being a great writer he was also an enthusiastic photographer. Their meeting always reminds me of his light hearted remark to the early British photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn that “Technically good negatives are more often the result of the survival of the fittest than of special creation: the photographer is like the cod, which lays a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.” That was in 1906. The year my father was born.

Since that time, the typical number of pictures available to a photographer has grown from one (plate cameras), to twelve (the Rolleiflex), to thirty-six (the Leica) to, who knows, several hundred or thousand with a high capacity digital card. So in a hundred years, the camera’s capacity has grown by three orders of magnitude. Sadly, the quality of the average picture has not.

Why is this? Take a look at your old family albums. They probably contain pictures taken 50, 70 or maybe even one hundred years ago. Note that the earlier the picture the better the composition and execution. Chances are those were taken in a studio setting. Your great great grandparents had donned their finest clothing and the whole sense of occasion, of having your picture taken, of making an effort to get it right, enhanced the results immeasurably.

My parents in 1937. Studio photograph.

The view was the same from the other side of the lens. The professional taking the picture knew he only had one chance. He studied his technique, made it a constant (not mindlessly changing between this lens and that, film A, B or C, developer X or Y) and delivered every time. He put considered effort into every picture.

I believe we would all do far better, wasting less time and materials in the process, were we to follow suit. Less equipment and less film correlate inversely with the quality of the results.

So I challenge you. Get to an area you know and have photographed a few times, armed solely with one roll of film or one low capacity digital card. That might mean as many as 50 pictures for those used to a thousand or twelve or fewer to those used to carrying sufficient supplies for a couple of hundred. My version of this is a Rolleiflex with a fixed lens and just one roll of film – 120 in my case, meaning twelve pictures, as the camera will not even take 220. Thank goodness.

A more extreme variation, in my case dictated by the fact that so far I have only 2 film holders, is to take your field or view camera armed for just a handful of shots. Heck, the sheer bulk of the thing pretty much dictates this sort of economy. My two film holders allow me a scant four shots.

Now take your pictures. Think hard again when setting up the picture. Think harder before pressing the button. Take some time over each photograph.

Take a look at the results.

See how not only are most of them good, note also that the absolute number of successes far outweighs your machine-gun days?

Take fewer pictures and they will be better pictures.

How many times have I heard “I keep a lens cap on at all times to protect my precious lens” from photographers?

Sadly, for many this is more than literally true, the loyalty to the lens cap being so great that the user finds he frequently takes pictures of the inside, having forgotten to take it off!

Oh! you say, but I only keep my cap on when the camera is in its (never ready) case or camera bag. Even worse. Why on earth would your lens need protection stored in the safety of your (largely inaccessible) bag?

If you must have protection for the lens, place a clear glass filter over it. Then you can clean that with abandon using your shirt tail, handkerchief or tie, given that you will never have those precious lens cleaning tissues available when you need them. Then, after five years of hard use, throw away the filter and buy a new one. It has cost you $10/year and never gets in the way of a picture.

On a related topic, throw away the silly case your camera came with. Its sole purpose is to present one more obstacle to the taking of pictures, while simultaneously destroying the lovely feel of an unclothed camera held in bare hands. Plus, of course, film changing becomes a nightmare as you unscrew the camera from its case, nearly drop it as it is now untethered and promptly forget to properly tighten the screw when done. Another trip to the repair shop.

Liberate your thinking and your approach. Throw away your lens cap and that silly case and attach your strap of choice to the camera, where it belongs.

An enterprising Toronto-based photographer whose first name is Matt (he seems too shy to disclose his full name) took on the courageous, maybe quixotic, task of starting a web-based photography magazine named Photoblogs Magazine (May 2010 – now defunct). While I think the web is a great place to display pictures and try out new work on a broad audience, it lacks the permanence and sheer tactile feel of a good book.

You pass your bookshelf and grab that Harry Callahan book, wondering at just how he made that image which came to mind the other day. You switch on your computer and, by contrast, it’s a mixture of work (I stare at one of these things all day trying to make a living) and fear (Will it lock up on me again?) And with the present state of the art, the printed image leaves the electronic one in the dust.

Not least of a web publisher’s problems is how to get his site known in the vast sea of noise that is the world wide web. On the other hand, go to a good newsagent or bookshop and the handful of magazines publishing good photography are there, easily accessed and eagerly thumbed, without any fear of overload.

Still Matt should be respected for his efforts and I wish him well.

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune of being asked to be the first ‘Spotlight’ featured photographer in Matt’s magazine. The approach is that the photographer is asked five questions and his responses are then published with a few of his pictures. Well, strangely, even though my responses to the questions asked were exceptionally terse, sadly only four made the published page (or screen, if you prefer).

The unpublished question and answer were:

Q. With whom do you like to photograph most?
A. When it comes to taking pictures, one person is invisible, two are a crowd.

My response was rooted in the deeply held belief that photography, whether street candids or the great vistas of the American west, is a lonely pastime. You simply cannot go with another photographer, both set up your cameras in similar locations, and not be plagued by the thought that you are standing in the Kodak Picture Spot recording a Kodak Moment. The photographer must be free, whether to mutter aloud to himself and complain about the light, lean this way and that in the search of the perfect perspective, or wait for hours for just the right moment. Another photographer is a powerful distraction in all these activities.

Maybe the worst manifestation of the group approach so beloved amongst those with no individual thoughts or totally lacking in imagination, is the photo workshop. Given that technique can be learned from a book, and the art of seeing is either something you have or do not, what possible purpose can the workshop serve, unless it is to fill the pockets of the sponsors and the film stock of the participant with near identical images? Ok, so it’s fine for learning technical stuff, but it will not teach you to see. You can either see or you need to try another hobby. It’s a binary issue.