True Confessions - I Don't Photograph Every Day

one reads that dedicated photographers 'keep in practice' by using their cameras every day. I don't. Does this make me a) lazy, b) incompetent, c) less talented, or d) take substandard photographs?

I hope the answer is e) none of the above, but I don't really know. I suspect that I'm like a lot of photographers who have busy lives and other competing interests. Ansel was married, Edward had several wives, as well as lovers. Both had commercial work to complete much of which couldn't have done much to improve their skills as a photographer - I hear from commercial photographers that 90+% of their 'work' is selling themselves and only 10% at best is photographing. Some recent printing projects have certainly held that to be true for me so I suspect that in fact a very few people shoot every day and that fortunately the fact that I'm not one of them doesn't really penalize me.

It might be that this is more true for landscape work than for say street photography where fast reflexes and assured technique are essential.

Of course, the fact that I have photographed for 45 years doesn't hurt either. I would guess that the newer you are to photography the more often you need to shoot.

Consider though that a day not handling a camera isn't necessarily a day not seeing. I have found over the years that I often look at things photographically - for example, when out walking the dog, or driving the car.

And this doesn't take into consideration the hours I spend pouring over photographs, from magazines, books, on the net and elsewhere - even ads can be a learning experience. Occasionally movie camerammen have superb eyes for an image and would make top notch still photographers so even your TV watching could be argued as helpful.

I do think, though; that the photographer who only photographs on workshops or only on holidays or special trips and thus photographs no more often than half a dozen times a year, is handicapping him or herself.