If I take enough pictures, some of them are bound to be good.

This is a first in a series of 10 posts about the biggest myths in photography.


Number 10 - If I take enough pictures, some of them are bound to be good.


This is related to the old saying about given enough monkeys, time, and typewriters, they would eventually write all the works of Shakespeare. Maybe. But it would take a LOT of time and they would go through a lot of typewriters.

Photography is a learned skill. It is not hard, but like any other skill such as woodworking, playing a musical instrument, or public speaking, it is not automatic, and therefore requires a little bit of training. Professional instruction is not necessary, but would certainly go a long way.

If I decided to build a table, I could go out and buy a saw, some wood, and start randomly cutting wood and gluing pieces together. Given enough time I might end up with something that looks like table. But I would save a lot of time and trees if I did a little research on the details of table making. It is the same with photography. A little care and knowledge goes a long way.

The Eastman Kodak Company has been struggling with this conundrum since they brought out the first Kodak in 1888. How do you convince people that anybody can take pictures and still provide enough training that they may actually make some good photos? Generally they have errored on the side of telling people how easy it is, and billions of people have wasted billions of dollars on lousy pictures in the past 120 years.

I recently saw an article about this in an 1892 photography journal. The writer was lamenting that people were expecting miracles in their photos without making any effort to become better photographers. In the digital age the incremental cost has gone way down, the quantity of pictures taken has gone way up, but the quality of photos hasn’t changed. If anything they have gotten worse.

Having spent 23 years in the photofinishing business, I have seen plenty of pictures that could have been a lot better with only minor changes. Most of the people wanted better pictures but apparently not bad enough to try to learn.

Next week Myth # 9.

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