Fast Shutter On The Brain

I was shooting a celebrity event the other evening with some other colleagues of mine and after the time permitted to shoot, we had a discussion outside. Everyone was looking at their images and viewing the outcome and the question came about! All ears wide open. The question was how many images did you shoot?


For me this question brought on a whole topic of discussion with another colleague and doing some personal thinking that inspired me to write this blog.

At major sporting events it is important to shoot many shots per second not only to catch the action but for anticipation of something to come. For many photographers it is a main reason they purchase a fast camera. I can’t speak for other photographers but for myself so here I go.

For many reasons I do not shoot continuous for long periods of time don’t get me wrong, if I was shooting springboard diving, when you want to capture every split second of the diver jumping off the board and going into the water, then I would trigger away. Another example would be anticipation of the last shot of a tennis match and capturing the raw emotion on the winners face.

My touchdown shot at the Super Bowl, I anticipated a straight run toward the end zone bent down and shot the player, wide angle, diving into the end zone suspended in the air in one shot. Was this luck, was it anticipation or a little of both? Either way if I was shooting continuous from the start of the play towards the end of the play, the question is would my brain be doing the thinking and would I have gotten the shot? I honestly think information would have been lost in the image.

The image above was taken at a PETA demonstration. There were many photographers at the event from many major publications. Most of them were just standing in one position most of the time and shooting. Hey Guys, you want to be a professional photographer, well let me tell you it can be exhausting work if you shoot the way I shoot! From the start of the shoot I got there early and walked very quickly around in the heat looking at the lighting, the angles and finding the best shots. I am thinking nonstop because I want something unique on every shoot not only for the people I am shooting for but for myself. I am not in one position shooting continuous. For me the best shot was watching this police officer. He was there for one main reason to see some nudity and make an arrest! From the looks of my image above he didn’t terribly hate this demonstration. PS Photos from the event were published on line and in hard copy for New Times.

Back to my original question above: “How many images did I shoot? Well before I answer, one photographer shot 900+ images, one photographer shot 300+ images and all eyes were wide open when I told them I shot 30 images. To conclude the images were what I needed and I didn’t want to do a whole bunch of editing when I got home :).