An ongoing quip in the film versus digital debate is that ‘ film makes you think’.
Which implies that the byproduct of shooting digitally and free of film’s resource constraints reduces or hampers creativity.
A medium does not make you creative
The low shot storage capacity of film versus ever increasing memory card storage no doubt gives you more reasons to be conscious of action and intent — you’re using a finite resource.
What i don’t buy is that taking less shots makes a better photographer or produces better images.
Is a watercolour artist more (or less) creative than an oil painter? It is not the medium that makes you creative, it’s how you apply of the tools.
Provided there is intent in making an image, then I have no problem making lots of images in it’s pursuit, even if they are of the same composition.
In fact you can use it to good effect.
Make lots and lots of (thought through) shots
Once I’ve centered on a composition I tend to progressively make minor alterations until I reach an envisaged effect. This works especially well with water (seascapes and waterfalls) and rapidly changing weather fronts.
There are details in the landscape than one can envisage, but that present themselves so fleetingly capturing them takes an element of luck — and you can increase that luck by increasing your shot count.
Trail & Error
This shot was the product of 21 shots of the same composition tinkering with various shutter speeds until I caught the right level of movement in the clouds.
My initial start point was 5 secs – aimed at creating mist from the incoming tide – but then the light changed as the storm front cleared i progressively increased it.
Sunset over the Brissons | Cot Valley, Cornwall
Several exposures later I’d found a shutter speed that didn’t capture too much cloud movement — resulting in too exaggerated a blur / streaks. Or captured too little — which didn’t achieve the desired motion in the clouds to act as a diagonal lead in to draw the eye toward the sea stacks.
Knowing the right exposure to achieve this in a single frame, or even a few wouldn’t have been possible. I needed to experiment.
Unexpected movements
There are interactions of light and land that are so subtle and are impossible to predict no matter how much time we spend in the landscape trying to tame it.
I spent 3 days in this gorge tinkering around in varying spots in the river trying to create a pleasing composition.
rivendell | elowah falls
Flat overcast skies helped control the contrast, but robbed the scene of any definition. During a sequence of exposures, unexpectedly a small gap in the clouds flew overhead and the sun poured into the gorge side-lighting the rocks and providing nice definition to the scene.
I could see small breaks on the clouds, but predicting the moment it pour into the gorge was tricky. Taking numerous exposures allowed me to compensate for this and ensure I caught the moment it did break as i saw it in my minds eye.
Luxury is not laziness
I see no reason to be ashamed by the luxury that digital memory affords us.
We should use it to explore the nuances of a scene or our camera settings within a desired composition to find that frame that achieves our aim / visualisation.
When used with fast-moving and constantly changing subjects such as a waterfalls or storm fronts, the technique can capture nuances that would be missed otherwise in a few exposures of that scene.
With water, even with a single shutter speed, each of your frames could be unique.
Not spray and pray
Some might decry this as a shoot and pray technique.
I’m the first to agree that we should all think more before clicking the shutter. And I wouldn’t support utilising GBs of data storage to aimlessly point and shoot with no thought for the subject, lighting or composition in the hope of a eureka moment.
But if we have thought our shot through, using multiple exposures to help achieve that shot shouldn’t be frowned upon.
Your simply using the tools you have to achieve what you want.
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