3 things Fineart photographers DO NOT DO - Part 1 - Photo Constipation

On our long journey as a fineart photographer we often learn about things that we need to do, but seldom do we talk about WHAT NOT TO DO & I think it's equally important that we know what not to do. In this 3 part series I talk about three common mistakes I myself have committed in the past and also see others do time and again, which are easy to spot & avoid. 

1) Photo Constipation^* - This is the most common mistake I see us doing this in today's tech era that is driven by high speed "Burst Rate". Cameras today are easily capable of shooting at a staggering rate of 20fps and beyond, while its great for documentary photographers who are all about capturing "that" moment, fine art photography is by design SLOOOOW. For us it's more about capturing the "essence" of that moment rather than just capturing that moment, and there is a big difference between these two styles of photography. With an over load of images driven by the high burst rates, we often loose the ability to see the essence of that moment and it becomes more about pixel peeping into the subtle differences between each frame which is no good for artistic representation and the mind gets constipated with an overload of visual information.

Instead seasoned fineart photographers deal with this photo constipation by keeping their cameras on single shot mode or at worst on a slower burst rate, so they actually make a conscious effort to trigger the shutter. Its all about waiting for the right moment and composing for the right mood and click ONLY if they feel the magic happening. This way the photographer better remembers the emotion behind each image and  is much adept at representing the true emotion of the created image when working on post production. This results in singular images that are more precious than mass produced images.

So what are your thoughts on the point called out above? Do you shoot in Burst mode? Would love to hear your views in the comments below. 

Stay tuned for the remaining 2 mistakes will be listed in the upcoming weeks. 

^*"Photo Constipation" is a term coined by my dear friend photographer Deepa Mohan.

To read Part 2 -  Photo Purism