Slow 35 shooters?

[insertclevername]

A while ago, I took a trip to Seattle and shot about 2 rolls. When I got back and developed, I realized the mistake I made. I hardly had anything. A couple days and hours of travel wasted. Since then I've started to 'flow' more with 35mm. I don't rush; i just take photos as I see them.

 

[Leighgion]

It used to take me ages to finish a roll, but I've gotten better. Just had to keep telling myself, "it's only film" and before I knew it, I actually had rolls to develop in a reasonable span of time.

While I feel everyone should shoot at whatever speed they feel comfortable with, I reject the idea that being slow is somehow a natural virtue in photography. For me, shooting slow was an extreme case of not wanting to "waste" film, but it was so bad that what I was really doing was wasting opportunities.

 

[kraker]

It really depends. Sometimes I go through several rolls in a day (at events, for example). Usually, a roll lasts anything between a week and a few months. And I don't mind. It's not because I don't want to "waste film", it's lack of time, lack of inspiration, etc.

One thing, though... When a camera has been lying around for weeks with the counter high in the 20's, there's always this moment when I just pick it up and finish the roll. "Now it's taken long enough! I want to see what's on there, I want to be able to put a new (different) roll of film in that camera!".

 

[naugastyle]

I'm "slow," but it's not really that I take a lot of time with each shot. I'm a street shooter and a rapid one, but my problem is that I don't take back-up shots. I really should. I find I get lucky far more often than not, but the 2-3 scenes I shoot per day purposefully could easily be 9-12 frames total if I just wanted to be sure I didn't get motion shake, or blinking, or miss some other quick awesome moment that happened as I was putting the camera away thinking I already got what I wanted. Instead of taking a week or more to finish a roll of street shots, I could be finished in 2 days.

Although I shoot a lot of people, I find I only shoot a large amount of frames if I KNOW the people. Family, friends, documentary subjects can be the subject of a couple rolls within a couple hours. I think the difference is that I know the optimal way these people should look and I also know their quirky weird moments that perhaps I want to catch. When shooting strangers (either on the street or new people I meet while traveling) I am generally satisifed with a couple frames (but again, I think I should up that--I have SUCH a hoard of film that I really should be blowing through).

Another reason I'm a slow shooter though, is that I simply don't "go out shooting." I'm very much a "this is my life" kind of photographer. I shoot as part of my commute, I shoot in my neighborhood, I shoot in Chinatown when I'm shopping, or the neighborhood where my darkroom is, etc. Other than aforementioned times of hanging out with friends, family, or documenting something in particular, I just have several different cameras loaded with different films, and try to bring at least one with me each day...but sometimes I don't. And even when I do, I may not find a lot that day worth photographing.

 

[rafaelpeme]

As I'm recently letting d*****l go away, i realize that i'm a slow shooter when using 35mm film. mostly because of the cost (film/developing is really expensive here in Brasil), but also because i tend to get more precise shots, and that helps a lot my technique.