© Jill Freedman
Don’t let the shutter think for you
We shoot too much, and we all know it.
Digital gave us huge freedom. No rolls, no developing, shoot as much as you want. A thousand photos in an hour without spending a cent. But that’s exactly where we stumble, that freedom turned into excess, and when you overdo it, you’re just clicking for nothing.
On December 10, 1889, Eastman patented his transparent Kodak roll film. From that moment on, photography changed skin. With film, every shot had weight, not out of romance, but because you didn’t have infinite frames. Today you fire off ten shots before even understanding what’s in front of you, and when you look at them again, they tell you nothing.
But the point isn’t going back to film as a fetish. It’s about recovering a feeling, shooting less as practice, not as dogma. Sensing the shot before taking it, that spark between instinct and thought whispering, “shoot now.” And in the end, as Jill Freedman said, “You’re taking a picture because you’re curious or you want to know or you want to see, or it’s a good picture. Who gives a f*ck?! This is not an intellectual.” It’s not about quantity or purity. It’s about following the curiosity that moves you, that spark that makes you freeze the world for an instant.
The street tests you every second; it offers a thousand possibilities, and you must choose which ones truly matter. You can’t take them all, because if you take everything you take nothing. It’s like shouting non-stop, eventually no one listens.
It doesn’t matter how many shots you take. What matters is how many stay in your head at the end of the day, how many poked you, bothered you, shifted you by even a millimeter. The rest you forget even as you’re making them.
Shoot less, shoot better, shoot when it feels right.
The alternative is to keep firing randomly hoping something will happen… spoiler: it doesn’t.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibé’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.