Years ago, I took some courses from Lynda.com, and one of them featured a chapter called "Work the Scene." I've always remembered that. Unlike film days, when you had to make the most of every shot, today, we can shoot and shoot and shoot.

The idea behind "Work..." is that one shot is often not enough. I was just taking some pictures around the property outside, and I shot from lots of different angles. Shots that I thought would be good, weren't as good as shots that I took from other angles. Next time you're shooting something, try lots of different angles. You may be surprised at the results.

Work the scene, is good advice. Most Photographers come to it intuitively.
Young newspaper photographers were often told, "Get Something" then work to try to get something better.
When I teach I often say "If something catches your eye, make the picture, but then ask yourself what are the odds that you are in the best possible place, in the best light, at the right height ...etc to make the strongest picture? Then also ask what ELSE is there? Would the light be better at a different time? What if you waited a while to see what else happens.
Most photographers do some variation of this, but it is helpful advice both for people who are learning, and the rest of us to remind ourselves once in a while. So thanks for ringing it up.

LOL. Old dogs never learn new tricks. Why pay $$$$ for a digital wonder of the modern world and then use it as it was meant to be used? So many think 'success' is to shoot one frame standing straight up, at eye-level, usually slightly out of focus, just like every other person who ever shot from that spot before. Their images look exactly like everyone else's. Success ....

That sarcasm aside, I still fear the old dogs don't want to learn. Varying the aperture, varying the zoom length, varying the AF point location involves learning how to use your camera. Getting down on a knee, getting down on the ground, even moving 5 steps to the left or right, or better yet: 10 steps closer. Some of these tricks might even involve cracking the manual to learn where those controls reside. Spending 5 minutes instead of 30 seconds, when most of us really have all day free; I don't see it happening. I preach these ideas whenever I can find a soapbox.

A newer 'theme' I've seen is "I don't want to waste time on a computer." Well, too bad, all I hear is "I don't want to succeed. I have an attachment problem and can't delete failed image files." They think a real photographer like Ansel Adams hiked all the way into those mountains, took one perfect shot, and hiked home to glory.

Myself, most times I find that I arrive at just the right time when a thousand images will surely capture something. This strategy is more likely to yield success than just one slightly out of focus frame, shot at eye-level, standing straight up, and moving on. Myself, if I stop to shoot at all, I take as many versions as to justify (find) why I stopped there and raised the camera to begin with.

I started taking photos in Junior high school with a 35mm Kowa. Well, actually, much earlier, if you count Dad's Brownie Hawkeye. Because of my interest in photography, when I joined a police department later, I was selected as an evidence technician. Yeah, plaster casts for footprints and tire marks, along with a Speed Graphic (they weren't very modern). And in the case with the Graflex were 10 film packs - 20 images max.

So if I was working Fri. - Sun., that's all I had to work with, until the film could get turned into the photo lab on Monday for processing and reloading the film packs.

Got a murder scene to process on Friday night? Got to think very, very carefully, planning each shot. And hey, don't use them all up, Got to save some film in case another important scene comes up during the rest of the weekend.

So I became a very slow, calculating photographer, with no "wasted" film.

My own 35mm film was a joy to "blow through," although paying for the film and processing myself still limited my shooting, especially with color.

Those experiences have stuck with me, even when I got my first Canon DSLR. And I'm only limited by how much storage space I have, and battery life. Even though I have plenty of both.

I'm afraid I'm kind of going the other way now though. I pop off 50 shots, and try as I might, I have a hard time selecting the "best," and deleting the rest.

Somebody's going to have a helluva job when I die, deciding what to do with them all. BTW, I've even gone back and scanned all the slides and negatives from high school (I was the newspaper and yearbook photographer).

Megabytes? Ha! More like gigabytes now.