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My 17,000th Photograph Published to Zooomr

Ride Baby Ride

The photo above is my 17,000th photo uploaded to Zooomr and is part of my artistic statement to finish and publish 500,000 photographs before I die. 500,000 seems a long ways off at this point — especially given that I’m only publishing about 20 photographs a day right now.

At 20 photographs a day I’d need to shoot a little over 66 more years to achieve this goal. While 66 + 39 (my age today) might be possible, instead I think that I will pick up the pace later in life in order to meet the goal. I’ll pick up the pace for a couple of reasons. First of all someday I’ll be able to retire and spend more hours each day shooting. Secondly, I believe that technology will continue to get better and better and faster and faster allowing me to be more productive in the years ahead.

At present I only finish about 10% of what I shoot. I want to keep my emphasis on quality as well as quantity. If I meet my goal of 500,000 finished photograph before I die, I will likely have somewhere around 5 million photographs taken in unfinished form.

Some days of course I take more photos than others. At present I’m averaging about 200 photographs a day. Some days I’ll only take 50 or so and then other days (like today when I’ve been running around NY all day shooting) I’ll take well over a 1,000 (and the day’s only half over).

Much of the work that I’m doing with my photography is to later on in life develop powerful collages using my photographs as raw material for these later projects. I’ve got many of these projects already mapped out in my mind, but I lack the time and resources today to pull them off. Someday though I will.

If you want to see a good retrospective of my work, check out my fav10 set on Zooomr. It represents all of my photos on Zooomr that have received 10 favorites or more.

Thanks to all who have supported me in my work.

12 Replies to “My 17,000th Photograph Published to Zooomr”

  2. Hey Thomas,
    Congrats on another milestone!

    Are you planning to do another Holiday version of “Thomas Recommends” for cameras, lenses, tripods, and other camera accessories. The one you did a year or so back was quite helpful and I wonder what you’d suggest given some of the new products.
    Thanks.

  3. Hey Thomas,
    Congrats on another milestone!

    Are you planning to do another Holiday version of “Thomas Recommends” for cameras, lenses, tripods, and other camera accessories. The one you did a year or so back was quite helpful and I wonder what you’d suggest given some of the new products.
    Thanks.

  5. You know, that really helps put into perspective why your work is as good as it is; you have shot a serious amount of “film” and work at it religiously. Congrats on the milestone!

  8. I’m just curious…does quantity matter to you more than quality? I’m 17, and I first learned how to shoot black and white a few years ago, it helped me really learn how to set up a photo, not just go around rampantly shooting photographs. B&W; photography is a medium where more care and attention is brought to each individual photo. Now, I’ve seen many of your photos, and they’re amazing, they look stunning. But what I’ve hardly seen from you, are photos that mean something, to the viewer and to the photographer. Now I know that Digital Photography has done so much, allowed us to capture priceless family moments, or something that’s quickly happening before us, but there is also a lot that is lost. Does each photo you take mean something? Did you have a background in black and white photography? In B&W;, I love getting to print the photos you like – not all, of course – and seeing the photo literally come to life.

    I just see that a lot has been lost with digital photography, and I’m wondering if you see this happening too. But still, great photos – they’re pretty (most of them don’t mean anything to me though).

    Kabren

  9. I am amazed to hear that you publish 20 photos a day! I struggle to get ONE photo out every day 🙂 As ever, I am still a huge fan of your work.

  10. B&W; photography is a medium where more care and attention is brought to each individual photo. Now, I’ve seen many of your photos, and they’re amazing, they look stunning. But what I’ve hardly seen from you, are photos that mean something, to the viewer and to the photographer. Now I know that Digital Photography has done so much, allowed us to capture priceless family moments, or something that’s quickly happening before us, but there is also a lot that is lost. Does each photo you take mean something? Did you have a background in black and white photography?

    Kabreen,

    In general I use black and white as a medium when I can’t get the colors to look like what I’d like to in Adobe’s Bridge software. It’s more of a cop out for me than anything. I only shoot in color and typically will first play around with a photograph as a color photograph — when I find I can increase the drama in the photo by converting it to B&W; I will do so.

  11. Interesting point Kabren – and, if you don’t mind me being a patronising old fool, very wise for one so young. Anyhow, I share some of your reservations, not necessarily about Thomas’ pictures which I think are stunning (hi Thomas btw – sorry to start a conversation with someone and not comment directly on your work, although that is of course the nature of comment threads), but about the purpose of so many images. I’m trying to improve my technique and one of the things I struggle with is finding meaning in the process and the results: what is it / are they FOR? I hope that one day I will feel that mastery of but a few of the elements of photography (and heaven knows I’m nowhere near that yet) will enable me to go beyond what I am able to capture now and commune more directly with the subject (if that doesn’t sound too knitted yoghurt, man). But this is, I must admit, conjecture and may not come to pass. I enjoy it immensely in the meantime though!

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