10,000 Hours

You might have heard about Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers: The Story of Success. In the book Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule. Basically, if you want to master something, you have to work at it, a lot. In the book, Gladwell quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin.

“In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice-skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, this number comes up again and again. Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or 20 hours a week, of practice over 10 years… No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.“

So, if you want to improve your photography, you have to shoot more. The more you shoot, the more ideas you will come up with and the better chance you'll have at creating a successful image. The image below was taken by photographer Brooke Williams and posted on Gladwell's web site.