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Hong Kong9145 Posts
Only show your best
During a standard events photography gig, I can end up taking hundreds, if not thousands, of photos. However, I only end up publishing a couple dozen photos after all is said and done.
Why is this? Why don't I just publish them all?
The answer to that question is a principle that I hold dear and to which I try hard to subscribe: take lots of interesting photos, but only show your best.
Keep this in mind: editing your photographs isn't just about developing the photos that you take, it is about establishing a narrative based on what you publish. You have total control over what people see; take advantage of that important fact.
The many faces of Liquid`HerO.
For example, if you have multiple photos of the same person or subject, pick one. Do not post them all. The act of picking one can be really hard to accomplish, I know, but you have to do it.
A photo set tells the story of an event. Having multiple shots of the same subject or person is like a broken record repeating itself again and again. Pick one shot that represents the scene that you found important and stick with it.
Realize that if you missed the shot, you missed the shot. Don't press your luck by trying to get away with posting photos with serious exposure or compositional errors just because you think it was an important shot to have. It's better to ignore that the mess up ever happened and use an alternative if possible rather than draw attention to your mistake by publishing substandard work or trying to mask it with filters and heavy processing.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Yqwaf5g.png) Be prepared to reject a lot of photos.
Of course, your definition of what is interesting and what is your best is quite subjective, but it is the thought that matters. Try to only show your best whenever possible.
Your standards will change, and hopefully for the better. Things I let go in the past can sometimes look quite strange to me in the present.
These lessons can only be learned through practice, and I still even find myself letting photos go when I should not have currently. I fix them where I can and delete the rest, because I try to only show my best.
This blog was prompted by one of my Twitter followers asking me for some advice about how to start taking photographs at esports events. If you found it interesting, useful, or otherwise, please let me know in the comments.
Cross-posted from my personal blog.
 
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Interesting post. I figured that this would be the case but it's still good to read it direct from the source.
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Cool blog! did you previously do any sports or event photography before this??
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Foolishness
United States3044 Posts
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Hong Kong9145 Posts
On October 17 2015 04:06 Foolishness wrote:
I found it interesting!
Thanks!
On October 16 2015 21:59 QuanticHawk wrote:
Cool blog! did you previously do any sports or event photography before this??
Thanks! Actually, no. While I had been taking random snapshots all my life, esports marked the time when I switched to digital and became serious about it all.
All because I wanted to take a good photo of BoxeR at MLG Anaheim 2011.
On October 16 2015 10:19 Plexa wrote:
Interesting post. I figured that this would be the case but it's still good to read it direct from the source.
One day I'll eventually do a b-sides and derpfaces expose with some of the things that fell on the cutting-room floor. Not all of it is bad!
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As my dad entered his late 30s-early 40s he realized his Starcraft and Cricket skills have diminshed immensely, so he picked up photography, its amazing how much works goes into it all, it's really fascinating.
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On October 17 2015 08:29 Cricketer12 wrote:
he picked up photography, its amazing how much works goes into it all, it's really fascinating.
Yeah, man. You can edit a single photo for hours if you like. When I pick some image in Photoshop I can mess with it and it's so fun doing it that I forget the time.
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On October 17 2015 08:29 Cricketer12 wrote:
As my dad entered his late 30s-early 40s he realized his Starcraft and Cricket skills have diminshed immensely, so he picked up photography, its amazing how much works goes into it all, it's really fascinating.
You have a dad that plays SC? That's what I call cool parents 
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I can relate to this for sure. The first time I did that was at the WCS Toronto Finals a few years ago, and over the tournament I think I amassed 3-400 a day, most of which were :meh:
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Yeah, I do that too!
Most of the time I take pictures at concerts. And often there are limits for us photographers, like "only the first three songs". And so you basically stay on your release all the time, have 300 photos in 10 min and most of it you just throw away when you check it.
Really hate galleries where you have the "same" picture like 5 times and nobody cared ... that is not good work!
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I even like to do that with my casual photos. I was in New Zealand for 6 months and took a lot of pictures, but in the end, only 30 made it into my photo album (made of actual paper  ). I had really hard decisions to make what pictures to pick and which to drop but in the end it was totally worth it: I now have the perfect amount of pictures to tell my family and friends about my fabulous trip to NZ. No one ever gets bored or is repleted from too many pictures. And I have a lot of stories (note: plural) to tell for each picture.
In the rare case, someone (including me) actually wants to see more, I have an additional 100 photos on my PC but that's it. The rest is permanently deleted. I guess its the classic: Less is more.
Thanks, Itsjustatank for putting enough thought into the choosing of your photos and even more thanks for encouraging others to do so, as well. Cheers!
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Hong Kong9145 Posts
On October 20 2015 04:32 AKnopf wrote:I even like to do that with my casual photos. I was in New Zealand for 6 months and took a lot of pictures, but in the end, only 30 made it into my photo album (made of actual paper ). I had really hard decisions to make what pictures to pick and which to drop but in the end it was totally worth it: I now have the perfect amount of pictures to tell my family and friends about my fabulous trip to NZ. No one ever gets bored or is repleted from too many pictures. And I have a lot of stories (note: plural) to tell for each picture. In the rare case, someone (including me) actually wants to see more, I have an additional 100 photos on my PC but that's it. The rest is permanently deleted. I guess its the classic: Less is more. Thanks, Itsjustatank for putting enough thought into the choosing of your photos and even more thanks for encouraging others to do so, as well. Cheers!
Thanks!
I guess the difference is that I don't permanently delete photos unless they are absolutely unsalvageable. Sometimes you need them in the future, or you might decide they are worth using later for a different project.
On October 20 2015 00:43 Geisterkarle wrote:
Yeah, I do that too!
Most of the time I take pictures at concerts. And often there are limits for us photographers, like "only the first three songs". And so you basically stay on your release all the time, have 300 photos in 10 min and most of it you just throw away when you check it.
Really hate galleries where you have the "same" picture like 5 times and nobody cared ... that is not good work!
To me it just reeks of the photoset lacking good editing choices.
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