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Photography

Instagram: A use for missed shots and crappy photos

There are many times in a photoshoot that you miss the shot. The image is out of focus, you get under or over exposed images, etc. Well, don’t throw them away, you can still use those shots.

Long leg jeans

I went to one of the Intermoda Trends runway and found out there was a new rule: No DSLR photography allowed. Why do this at a fashion show? I have no idea, but if you didn’t have a press pass, you could not use a DSLR. I was raging because I could see several people using mirrorless cameras with the same sensors as a DSLR shooting away, and just because my camera was “professional-looking” I could not use it and they could use theirs.

So I tried shooting “from the hip”, very discretely just aiming and trying to get a shot of the runway. I didn’t focus manually, since I had no chance to even check the viewfinder once. I relied on the autofocus for the first shots, then locked the focus and continued shooting. When I downloaded all my images for review, I found out, unsurprisingly, that I had 200 shots of unfocused models at the runway. The autofocus got locked focusing the front row, not the runway.

Long black dress

I thought of deleting them all, but for some reason just kept them as JPEGs. Then I remembered how Instagram has a very crappy quality, and immediately thought that it was the perfect place to put missed shots. I tested my theory and I got a lot of likes from those missed shots.

So if you have some out of focus images or crappy quality shots, don’t throw them away, try posting them on Instagram, as quality and sharpness is not one of its attributes.

By Gabriel Saldaña

Gabriel Saldaña is a web developer, photographer and free software advocate. Connect with him on and Twitter