One in a thousand

I am a keen photographer with some formal training and what I believe is a fairly good compositional eye, but I, like most of the world have fallen into the trap set by manufacturers of digital cameras. Once upon a time when cameras held real film you had to be careful about composing each and every shot. Developing and printing films was a costly business so you were naturally cautious. Quality before quantity!

Along came digital media and now you didn’t have to do anything apart from downloading your photos to your computer. Photoshop and similar software enabled you to manipulate images in your virtual darkroom, but more often than not you ended up with the digital equivalent of a shoebox of prints in the back of a drawer somewhere. Quantity over quality!

Now, because each image isn’t wasting film I have developed (excuse the pun) the habit of taking LOTS of images. In the days of film I could have a 36 exposure film in my camera for months, whereas now will happily snap away a hundred images in a day. I have found that if I take 1000 photos, 100 or so will be average, then maybe 20 or so will be ‘keepers’ (not that I ever actually throw any away – I just get more storage capacity) and 5 or 10 of the 1000 will be pretty darned good and worth printing and maybe framing.

Then every so often, but quite rarely, I am lucky enough to take an image that is in my eyes spectacular.. this is the 1 in 1000 shot that requires no manipulation or even cropping, the colours are realistic, the exposure is spot on, the composition follows the rule of thirds, and the image 'says something.'

Such was my very good fortune when just a few days ago I ‘snapped’ this image from the terrace bar of a hotel in Galle where my wife and I were spending a relaxing break away from the ‘busyness’ of Colombo.