Most important advice you never followed

[Bill Burk]

In college I took a class in color slide photography. One important piece of advice the instructor wanted to impart was...

Caffeine causes shakes, so don't drink coffee before going out to take pictures.

I get it, facts are facts. So I vowed to use a tripod.

She could have her herbal tea in the morning... But nothing was going to stop me from that first cup of coffee in the morning.

I have to have coffee before going outside, even if there's an earthquake (Whittier Narrows comes to mind).

No way, never once, have I followed her advice.

[jnanian]

i was told to throw away my camera because i was wasting my time.
i never followed this rock-star of a photographer's advice, although i do a fair amount
of cameraless photography.

[sly]

"Photography's hard work and the gear is heavy. It's not a field for women"

Circa 1973, teacher at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute

[pstake]

Well, I was told to never drink with sources / subjects.

[Bruce Osgood]

"Get out of the way!"

Sometimes it seemed like good advice but for the most part it hasn't been.

[Toffle]

Not really an important thing, but I was told to rewind my 35mm films after 35 exposures. I've never done this. Consequently, I have two or three frames left over at the end of each roll. These get crammed together on a page with a whole bunch of other orphaned bits of film. It's a bit of an irritation, but also kind of interesting to see different subjects juxtaposed on a contact sheet. It does give me different insights into how to approach shooting and printing.

[Bill Burk]

Not really an important thing, but I was told to rewind my 35mm films after 35 exposures. I've never done this. Consequently, I have two or three frames left over at the end of each roll. These get crammed together on a page with a whole bunch of other orphaned bits of film. It's a bit of an irritation, but also kind of interesting to see different subjects juxtaposed on a contact sheet. It does give me different insights into how to approach shooting and printing.

Funny! That's why I search the earth high and low for Paterson pages. Strips of 6.

[Roger Cole]

Funny! That's why I search the earth high and low for Paterson pages. Strips of 6.

Pages that hold strips of 6 are easy to find. Freestyle has them.

Are these Paterson ones different in allowing you to contact those onto 8x10, though? I have some strips of six pages but I don't like using them for that reason. They don't allow contacting onto 8x10 as they just wont fit. I have to dump all the strips out and carefully arrange them horizontally on an 8x10 sheet, which I find a hassle. Although, naturally enough, you get a sharper, more informative contact sheet, I don't usually care about that. I use the contact to judge composition and judge the negative directly for sharpness.

Most "important" advice I never followed? Probably to standardize on one film, one developer, and one paper. I agree it's a way to get the most out of your materials. But I figure they make different ones for good reason besides just different tastes and it's not that hard to know them well enough. I gleefully experiment with different films, developers and paper because, in part, I just enjoy fooling around with them to see what different ones do, and in part because, while I agree that you will never exhaust the possibilities of one combination, not every combination suits every image I want to make. I like Delta 3200 (in 120) and TMZ (in 35mm) a lot for low light. But should I really be shooting those outdoors in daylight for images from which I want to make large prints? Pshaw. I MIGHT eventually settle on just Delta 3200 for a very fast film since I can get it in both 120 and 35mm, but for now I use both and seem to have no problems with that. In more normal light I settle on one 400 film and one medium speed film (Tri-X and FP4+) with an occasional roll of Pan F+.

Two papers, three if you count an RC paper for less critical prints and contacts. Even then, I'm willing to try others.

[RalphLambrecht]

not to look for magic bullets.ust work with one film,paper ,developeruntil you understand your equipment and materials inside and ou. there are no magic solutions and no need to through money at a problem.

[ROL]

not to look for magic bullets.ust work with one film,paper ,developeruntil you understand your equipment and materials inside and ou. there are no magic solutions and no need to through money at a problem.

So what you're saying is you do look for bullets, don't understand your equipment, and need to throw money around???

Yippeee! Free at last, free at last.