Gladwell in his now famed Outliers proposed a "10,000-hour rule," arguing that to become an expert in anything, one has to spend 10,000 hours honing his skills. Coincidentally, there is also a "rule" in photography, dating back to the film age, that the first 10,000 photographs are trash. (If that's true, in the digital age, it is probably not too far from the truth to say that to become a photographer, one has to shoot over 100,000 photos.) Needless to say, the magic number 10,000 is not unique to any particular profession or culture. The Chinese believe that to succeed in life one has to "walk 10,000 li and read 10,000 scrolls of books."
Last weekend, I started to dig out some old photos, some scanned years ago. It's interesting to note that how my life has changed so dramatically over the past few decades. The number of my photos in the 80s or earlier is probably around 20 or so, in the 90s, hundreds at most. But I shot over 12,000 photos in the year 2011. At the professional level, going by the sheer numbers, I probably still have a very long way to go before I can produce a really good photograph that won't embarrass me weeks if not days later. At the personal level, however, any photos are better than no photos. Those images from my early years, although generally of poor quality, are nevertheless potent in enabling me to relive the precious moments of the past.
Whatever my future may be, it surely will be made much better if I keep shooting.
