Spray and Pray

Spray and Pray -  Wikipedia:

"the term is also sometimes used in the photography community to describe a scenario where one shoots many photos of subject, and prays that one of them is a keeper."

A photographer with a hood over his head and a 4x5 camera on a big tripod is respected by his photographic peers.  If he uses the zone system, he is worshiped.

The photographer who walks over beside him with a 35mm SLR and points a camera at the same subject doesn't command the same respect.  If his camera goes click, click, click, click. click, click, click and click one photographer looks at another and says "Spray and Pray".  No respect.

I once had a composite photo of four cats.  I entered a photo contest that had a category titled "Animals".  Thinking that cats were animals I entered it in the Animal category.  It was a good picture and when asked I described how it was taken.  Each cat was photographed with the same camera, same lens, same light, same shutter speed, same f stop, same ISO and same location.  Cats are difficult to pose so I merged four images into one.  It never crossed my mind that this caused the cats to stop being Animals.   Fortunately  there was another category called Experimental.  If I had made the same image with four exposures in camera,  the experimental cats would have become animals again.

This blog will contain my observations about and experiences with multi-image photography.   Perhaps it will inspire you to get out from under the hood, retire the 4x5 camera, bury the zone system with Ansel and Spray and Pray yourself.