High Failure-Rate Shots

I've heard about folks taking a photography class where they are coached to frame everything exactly as intend to use it -- no cropping allowed. I think of that mentality as linked to the technique of only taking a few, carefully placed shots.

That may work in classrooms and certain applications, but not for other things -- like the Charlotte Criterium this past weekend.

I've heard that American G.I.s in WWII were coached in training to aim carefully and only shoot at what they could see. Real combat taught different lessons -- not being stupid, the enemy has no intention of being seen. There is only one brief video clip of a Japanese soldier in combat, and he was running away for all he was worth.

Infantrymen learned they couldn't wait around for the perfect, nicely composed shot. Instead they figured out how to identify the basic location of the enemy and then open up on them with everything they had.

Shooting at the bike race, I had several challenges. These guys are moving very, very fast. And to get the low angle I wanted to I was curled up in a ball on the ground on the inside of a turn, shooting through a fence between an advertising banner and some woman's legs. So I didn't really get to see the cyclists coming at me, giving me time to set up a shot, until they were already past.

Add to this the waning evening light and a desire to try some fun techniques with slow-shutter panning and a delayed second-curtain sync flash. Overall, the conditions were somewhat challenging.

This tends to lead to "high failure-rate shots." No matter how good you are, only a small percentage of your shots are going to come out as you wish. Only a small percentage of rounds fired actually hit the enemy. So you use a lot of them.

I didn't wait for the perfect shot -- a well framed, well composed Japanese soldier. I took advantage of free digital film, and lots of it, and blazed away with hundred of shots, resulting in a lot of goodies. Among them, I got the one I was looking for, even though I likely never even saw it at the time. For some of the shots I had the camera away from my eye, trying to follow the flying cyclists and just holding down the shutter and hoping.

Quality is good. Quantity is good. Having a quantity of quality is great.