PHOTO 101: Wedding Photography Mistake #6

The Chimper

Chimping is a fairly new term when it comes to photography since the invention of the digital camera. The origin of the term as taken from Wikipedia:
"The term 'chimping' is attributed to Robert Deutsch, a USA Today staff photographer, in September of 1999 when writing a story for the SportsShooter email newsletter. The phrase is most likely derived from comparison between the sounds and actions some make while reviewing images and those of an excited primate (Oooh! Oooh! Aaah!), or when a photographer is completely absorbed in the act of analysing, admiring or proudly displaying a shot to others."

How great is it that we photographers now have the ability to actually see right away if we got the shot. The problem is not in the trained photographer but in the untrained one. A trained photographer will occasionally look at the LCD screen to look at the histograms of the image, not the image itself. Histograms tell us if the shot is in the right range for exposure. The untrained photographer will be looking at the actual image to see if they “got a good one.” Contrary to the trained photographer’s occasional glance, the untrained one will be looking at practically every shot. This is called chimping. The problem with chimping: while the photographer is patting himself on the back for getting such a good shot, he is missing an even better shot because he is not paying attention.

ADVICE: Set your camera's review mode to the INFO setting that shows your histograms. In your camera's menu settings, you can also change the histogram view from brightness to RGB. This will split your histograms so you can see all three channels. Feel free to look every once in a while, just to make sure the exposure is correct, but don't get lost in your photos and NEVER look through a bunch of photos while shooting an event. You not only look lame, but you will be missing what you are being paid to do: SHOOT!!!!!

[I took the above photo at the Gibbon Conservation Center in Santa Clarita in 2005 for an article for Elite Magazine. Even though not a chimp, the gibbons are of the ape family, I felt it still works because of his "oooh, aaah" face.]


WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY MISTAKE #6 The Chimper
WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY MISTAKE #7 The Do-Over Guy
WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY MISTAKE #8 The Wrong Place Guy
WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY MISTAKE #9 The Partier
WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY MISTAKE #10 The Narcissist