Quantitative Photography

A few weeks ago, I shared some photos that I had taken of Graham for his birthday photo shoot, complaining of how difficult it is to capture a little one's sweetness on camera when they won't sit still or look right at you because-- "oh, there's a pinecone!" or, "I think I hear a train.  Do you?  I do.  That's definitely a train."

But my one and only philosophy or trick of the trade (a term I use loosely as this is something I hardly do professionally) is to take as many photos as your time slot will allow, because at least one of them is bound to be good.

That trick works well with Graham.  His attention span is short, but his face is adorable, so only a few seconds of concentration and about 850 pics are needed to guarantee a quality photograph.  But shooting Cael is a very different story.  With my iPhoto library inching toward 20,000 even after deleting nearly 10K over the last few weeks, I was hoping to avoid an hour long deleting session after uploading Cael's birthday photos.  So when I set out with my big boy and my big camera, I decided that my new philosophy would be "quality over quantity".

And quality is what I got.  Fewer photos, but still clear, bright and colorful, all documenting my birthday boy.  And nearly all of them looked like this.

Maybe sometimes, more really is better.