The Perfect Shot

Ever wonder how professional photographers get the perfect shot?

As you watch a news event or modeling session on television, one thing becomes quite obvious. Pros take hundreds, even thousands of shots knowing that only a few will yield perfect results. The secret to getting the perfect shot is to shoot as many pictures as possible.

Before digital cameras, pros would burn through roll after roll of film during a photo shoot hoping that maybe 5% or less of the pictures taken were usable. Now, of course they use digital cameras but the strategy remains the same.

Are you using this same strategy to get your own perfect shot?

Early photos of my family were taken with a 35mm film camera. Typically I would buy a half dozen rolls of film for the family vacation and hope for the best every time I pressed the shutter button. Pictures were often staged and getting everyone to smile at the same time was tricky. Results were always mixed.

Then I made the switch to a digital camera. Not only do I get instant results to review but I can keep shooting pictures until the memory card fills up. This assures me that a few of the photos I've taken will be the best I could hope for.

Notice in the series of photos below that most of the attempts were near misses not worth saving.

Had I used my old film camera, I wouldn't know if any of these looked good until the film was developed. And it's entirely possible I could have stopped before getting the perfect shot. But thanks to the digital review in the camera and plenty of card memory, I kept shooting until I was satisfied I got what I wanted.

Of course, sometimes it just isn't possible to get everything perfect no matter how many pictures are taken. For example, the following photograph was captured at Bear Lake, Utah.

Although the candid pose of the girl is great, the water doesn't look so good. That's where Photoshop comes in handy.

By carefully selecting only the water background, the color is adjusted to look more appealing. Some of the junk floating in the water is cloned out of the photo and title elements are added to give the photo the look of a faux magazine cover.

So if you are looking to get your own perfect shot, now you know how. Don't be afraid to take plenty of photos of the same subject the next time you get out your camera.

If you are interested in creating your own Drama Queen Magazine cover with one of your photos, visit www.toNoodle.com where there are loads of Photoshop video tutorials to help you learn digital scrapbooking.