I am not a complete Fred Picker fan boy, but I am not shy about saying that he had some important and insightful things to say (not to mention some very fine photographs he made photographic and many innovations he introduced). Recently I’ve been discussing my hit rate for 2018. I was going through my stash of Fred’s Zone VI Newsletters and found some of his thoughts that were highly germane to mine on keeper hit rates.  While he focuses part of his discussion on large format work, what he says is relevant to whatever format you may use. I really don’t think I could say it better then Fred did, so I will just go ahead and quote him! I’m sure if he was still with us he wouldn’t mind!

From Newsletter #47, June, 1986, pp. 8-10:

“I just finished filling work from 1985 and generated some statistics I found interesting.  I photographed 120 das last year of which about twenty were spent on commercial assignments and 100 were spent on personal work. I exposed 456 large format personal negatives (about 300 4×5, 150 8×10) or 4.5 exposures for every day I photographed. Some of the negatives were duplicates made either for backup or with different filters, different exposures, under changing light conditions, or made for different developing treatment, etc. There were about 300 subjects photographed. After proofing, I chose thirty-one negatives to print. That’s one negative printed for every fifteen negatives made, one negative printed for every ten subjects photographed, one negative printed for every three days in the field.

Because it took an average of three working days – twenty-four hours – to make a photograph that I thought worth printing and it takes me about two-and-a-half hours to print a new negative, I spent ten times as long making a picture that I thought worth printing than I spent printing it.

When you add to the printing time, holder cleaning, film loading, chemical mixing, negative developing, proofing, washing, toning, mounting, filling, cleaning up the darkroom, etc.; it comes to probably 35 hours or a five day work week per printable negative. The percentage is worse than that. Ten of the thirty-one prints were consumed during the traditional, painful, but necessary “New Years Day Edit by Wood Stove.”

Edward Weston said that if at the top of his form and if given adequate subject matter, (tow hefty “ifs”) he thought he could make one significant photograph for every day he spent in the field. Ansel said that twelve serious photographs a year was good output. To the hobbyist who fires off two 36 exposure rolls on a Sunday morning and prints half of them between cocktails and bed time on Tuesday night, his level of production will seem like pretty slime pickings. It all depends on what the individual photographer thinks is worth printing.”

And From Newsletter #51, June, 1987, pp. 9-10:

“There is an aspect of the Zone System that is usually regarded as vital. It has to do with the previsualizing of the print in all aspects. In my opinion, no one really can. Certainly anyone can visualize the print in shades of grapy and an accomplished photographer can note the most insignificant details of the composition but no one knowsat the time of t exposure the answer to the only important question: did he merely skillfully record what was there (made an admirable picture) or will he see in the print that subtle and evasive something wonderful?

Consider: any thousands of unprinted negatives indicate that anyone’s ability to visualize at the time of exposure in the most sophisticated terms, the emotional content of the future print, is pretty crude. If we could really do it, how come you, me, and the greatest photographers in history, take so many pictures that excite us at the time of exposure but the prints contain no more emotional wallop than a postcard? Even though the great get a higher percentage of “keepers” than ordinary folks, they also get a lot of near misses. The truth is that the balance and complexity of ingredients that make up and extraordinary photograph are so ephemeral they can be “previsualized” only up to a point. The transformation of real objects onto a two dimensional plane, rendering their colors in black and white, and radically changing the subjects’ size make it extremely difficult to foretell the emotional power, if any, the print will contain. So often the most exciting moments in the filed are disappointments in the darkroom. But sometimes you just know. Strand made about nine negatives of the wondrous cobweb in Maine. He knew.

What can you do? You have no choice but to be tough on yourself. Do a lot of work. Do it the absolute best you can regardless of the difficulties you may find. Photograph only what excites you (never what you think will “make a good picture”) and hope that the law of averages is operating.”

Take some time and think about what Fred said. Then go out and make some great photographs and prints you will be proud of!