Just Take the Shot
How one simple piece of advice became the foundation of a photographic practice
The best photography advice I ever received contained only four words.
Just take the shot.
It wasn’t wrapped in technical language.
There was no discussion about aperture, shutter speed or the latest camera equipment.
There was simply an invitation to stop hesitating.
For me, it began in 1999.
My first photography teacher, Gary Herbert, taught me something so simple that I have carried it with me for more than twenty-five years.
Go out and take photographs,
– Gary Herbert
take a notebook and document what you do.
Don’t wait until you know everything.
Don’t wait until you own the perfect camera.
Don’t wait until you feel confident.
Go and photograph.
Make mistakes.
Learn from them.
Then go out again.
That advice became the beginning of everything that followed … and I still have the book.
Since then it has led to hundreds of thousands of frames, exhibitions, art prizes, collections, commercial work and now ART1.
None of that would have happened if I had waited until I felt ready.
Photography is learned by doing
Photography is one of those disciplines where knowledge and experience continually inform one another.
You can study exposure, composition, colour theory and visual perception for years.
But until you begin making photographs, they remain ideas.
Every photograph teaches something.
Perhaps it is about light.
Perhaps it is about timing.
Perhaps it is about people.
Sometimes it teaches you exactly what not to do.
The camera becomes both notebook and teacher.
The sayings photographers never forget
Photography has accumulated its own collection of sayings, many passed from one generation to the next.
Some are practical.
Some are humorous.
Many contain surprising wisdom.
“Just take the shot.”
Perhaps the simplest of them all. Fear of failure disappears only after making photographs.
“The best camera is the one that’s with you.”
Often repeated because an ordinary camera in your hand is infinitely more useful than an expensive one left at home.
“F/8 and be there.”
One of photojournalism’s classic sayings. It reminds photographers that being present when something happens is usually more important than perfect technical settings.
“Zoom with your feet.”
A reminder to think about composition before relying on a zoom lens. While it isn’t always practical, it encourages photographers to engage physically with the scene.
“Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location.”
Many photographers have learned this lesson the hard way. Extraordinary light often appears just after everyone thinks the shoot is finished.
The masters said it too
The greatest photographers have expressed similar ideas throughout the history of the medium.
Ansel Adams observed,
“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.“
A reminder that photography is an act of intention rather than simply pressing a button.
Henri Cartier-Bresson famously remarked,
“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.“
Whether taken literally or not, the message remains clear. Vision develops through practice.
Dorothea Lange wrote,
“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.“
Photography preserves moments that can never exist again.
David Alan Harvey encourages photographers,
“Don’t shoot what it looks like.
Shoot what it feels like.“
Perhaps that is where photography moves beyond documentation and begins to communicate experience.
Looking back
When I think about that first lesson in 1999, I realise Gary Herbert wasn’t really teaching camera settings.
He was teaching confidence.
Permission to begin.
Permission to make imperfect photographs.
Permission to keep learning.
Every photographer eventually discovers that the perfect moment rarely announces itself.
It simply appears.
Then disappears.
Sometimes the only thing standing between you and the photograph is hesitation.
So, after all these years, the advice still feels as relevant as ever.
Just take the shot.
Looking Beyond the Quotations
Perhaps the greatest lesson these quotations offer is not that one of them is right.
It is that photography has never agreed with itself.
Every generation asks new questions.
Every photographer discovers different answers.
That is why the medium continues to evolve.
The quotations collected here are not rules.
They are invitations.
Each encourages us to look a little more carefully, think a little more deeply, and discover our own relationship with photography.
That conversation continues.
Further Reading
If these ideas resonate with you, ART1 explores one photographer’s evolving response through more than four decades of creative practice. As a living archive, it documents how ideas about observation, authenticity, memory and contemporary photographic practice have developed through the making of the work itself.
Rather than illustrating a single philosophy, ART1 demonstrates how photographic understanding continues to evolve over a lifetime.
Art ConneXions Network 