One of the biggest mistakes you can make, especially in street and travel photography, is not taking enough photos of whatever scene or subject you are shooting. You need to take A LOT of photos.
If you only take one or two shots, you could easily not have the best photo you could have taken:
You may miss focus
The exposure may be incorrect for that one or two shots
You shook the camera, thus causing the image to be blurry
The scene improved, making for a much better photo...but, you didn't take the shot, because you "already took a couple."
The person you were shooting may have blinked, causing a bad shot
The person or persons suddenly gave an awesome expression or gesture, but you missed it, because you had already stopped shooting
"But wait, Sensei, great photographers don't need to take many photos, they are experts." That is not correct, Grasshopper.
Most, if not all, great and professional photographers take an unbelievable amount of photos of their scene or subject:
Steve McCurry, legendary photographer and National Geographic magazine contributor, would shoot hundreds of rolls of film on an assignment. National Geographic photographers would regularly shoot 300 to 600 rolls of film on each assignment. Each roll of film was 36 exposures...so, that equals 11,000 to 22,000 images shot, just to get the 5 - 20 photos that would be printed in the magazine.
Steve McCurry, Agra, India 1983
Steve McCurry, Rajasthan, India
Steve McCurry, Rajasthan, India 1983
I read a story about Sebastião Salgado, the great master, and my all-time favorite photographer. He had visited a village and taken photos. Later, a reporter spoke to one of the villagers and asked him what he thought of Sebastião. One of the villager's responses was "I was surprised by how many photos he took."
Sebastiao Salgado
Sebastiao Salgado
Sebastiao Salgado
Garry Winogrand, considered by many to be the greatest street photographer ever...in addition to all of the photos he had shot and printed during his life, at the time of his death (at the age of 56) it was discovered that he also had 2,500 rolls of film which he had shot but never developed, 6,500 rolls of developed film that he never printed, and about 3,000 rolls for which he only made contact sheets. It is estimated to be over 300,000 pictures!
Garry Winogrand, New York, 1955
Garry Winogrand, New York, 1964
Garry Winogrand, Park Avenue, New York, 1959
Robert Frank, another legendary master, traveled around the United States taking photos for what would eventually be made into a book. The book was called, The Americans. It is considered one of the great photography achievements and it made him famous. The book contains only 83 photos…but he took over 25,000 pictures!
Robert Frank, Elevator, Miami Beach, 1955
Robert Frank, Times Square, 1947
Robert Frank
Do you see?
In the film days, at least there was the excuse that film cost money, and getting the photos developed and printed also cost money...so, it was at least understandable to try to take as few photos as possible.
But, now, with digital cameras, the cost of a photo is ZERO. You can take the photo, process it with an app, and share it online...at no cost. There is absolutely no excuse now to not take many pictures in order to make sure you get the big winner.
Just shoot and shoot and shoot. Later, look through your photos and simply keep the best ones. Deleting the bad photos costs you nothing...and no one will ever see the bad photos.
If another photographer thinks he or she is special and tells you "I don't need to take many shots to get what I want"...just remind yourself of the truly special photographers: McCurry, Salgado, Winogrand and Frank (and many other legends…too many for me to list here). Taking many shots was no problem for them…in fact, they did it on purpose.
So, never, ever, hesitate to take "too many"...or, feel that you are less of a photographer for doing so. There is no such thing. In fact, try to take too many, in order that you become accustomed to it.
It is infinitely better to go crazy and shoot hundreds of photos of a scene...and come away with one great image, and delete the rest...than to only take a few shots and know that you made a mistake and missed getting that awesome photo. No one is going to look at your mediocre photos and say "At least you didn't take too many."
People will remember you only for the great shots, and they will never think, for even a second, about how many shots you took to get them.
On a similar note…
If you come upon a scene, and you are not sure whether the scene is worth photographing...JUST SHOOT! You have lost nothing if you do not end up with a great photo.
But...if you realize later that you missed a great opportunity...that is a disaster. THE SCENE WILL NEVER BE REPEATED...YOU MISSED IT...FOREVER.
Wayne Gretzky, the legendary hockey player and goal scorer, said he never hesitated to just take a shot, because... "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
Just do it.