Great post and I mostly agree with the things you mention. Especially the part on what to show and share. Good example of Robert Frank's work.
For me deleting images does not resonate. Mainly because I do not shoot in continuous mode and I rarely take more photos of the same thing. I only delete photos that are undoubted not correct in any way, but I also have some 'darlings' that are technically not good, but still make me feel good. Even a photobomb ;-)
I rarely use the continuous shooting mode on my camera. I hate it to have to go through dozens of 'kinda-almost-exactly-the-same'-photo's to pick out the best one. Then again, I don't often do sports, action or street photography so I don't require it anyway.
I don't really delete images, but I do use a star rating-system to quickly make a selection of photo's I like and the ones I don't feel like editing anytime soon. I go through that selection again to narrow it down even further to the photo's I feel most compelled to. And from there I start (properly) editing them to a finished photo.
Occasionally I browse through the unrated selection and (most of the times) I do find something interesting. Especially if they are photo's from years ago :)
Btw, if I delete images, I properly Exterminate! them ;-)
Thanks Ronald. I also prefer single to continuous, but in recent years have been taking more pictures. I think your system is achieving the same effect as mine - making sure your photographs can be found and enjoyed.
To put the numbers in context I have approximately 5000 pictures in my Lightroom catalogue (discounting holiday photographs which I treat differently) from the last 14 years.
Oh I really have no idea how many photos are in my collection/catalog. Ah Capture One says about 45000 🤦♂️😊 (not sure if that is with or within virtual copies, but it's everything including holiday shots)
Me neither, that's why I really need to do culling, otherwise I get swamped and loose drive to work on the photos. At any time the 'to develop' selection is only 0.5% of the total number 😉
Thanks for this rule Olli, this is one of the rules that I have recently introduced in the last couple of years. It has also helped my shooting to be less frenetic and because I know there are less photos, I actually enjoy going back through my photos over the years.
I think a lot of people are SUPER scared of deleting because they are thinking "well what if I actually like this photo like 5 years later, maybe I'll see something that I won't now." I think it helps that through a hard drive failure early on in my photography when I was really young I lost about a year and a half worth of shooting and as much as it pains me and saddens me, I think to this day it has made the deleting of photos and being more ruthless feel a lot easier.
I am convinced that the ones who are winning with their photography and collections aren't the ones that can shoot 20 fps but the ones who ruthlessly delete.
As you mentioned with Frank, I feel like what really makes a photographer isn't actually even the capturing of images, but the curation of them.
Thanks Michael. I too sometimes wonder if a photo I'm rejecting might be seen in a different light later. One way round this I've found is if a picture is borderline I will leave it for a while and revisit it later. In some cases later can mean years later, by which point an image may have survived multiple culls.
Like you I also mostly go for single rather than continuous shooting. On one occasion I accidently left my camera on the continuous high setting and came home with thousands of shots. Since this was my RX100 which can manage 24 fps even my normal single shot press ended up taking six or seven shots. It took hours going through them all and I've never used continuous shooting since.
Great post and I mostly agree with the things you mention. Especially the part on what to show and share. Good example of Robert Frank's work.
For me deleting images does not resonate. Mainly because I do not shoot in continuous mode and I rarely take more photos of the same thing. I only delete photos that are undoubted not correct in any way, but I also have some 'darlings' that are technically not good, but still make me feel good. Even a photobomb ;-)
Thanks. Whatever approach we take I think the key thing is to be conscious of the need to manage our images so that we and others can see them.
Something to think about, thanks Olli!
I rarely use the continuous shooting mode on my camera. I hate it to have to go through dozens of 'kinda-almost-exactly-the-same'-photo's to pick out the best one. Then again, I don't often do sports, action or street photography so I don't require it anyway.
I don't really delete images, but I do use a star rating-system to quickly make a selection of photo's I like and the ones I don't feel like editing anytime soon. I go through that selection again to narrow it down even further to the photo's I feel most compelled to. And from there I start (properly) editing them to a finished photo.
Occasionally I browse through the unrated selection and (most of the times) I do find something interesting. Especially if they are photo's from years ago :)
Btw, if I delete images, I properly Exterminate! them ;-)
Thanks Ronald. I also prefer single to continuous, but in recent years have been taking more pictures. I think your system is achieving the same effect as mine - making sure your photographs can be found and enjoyed.
To put the numbers in context I have approximately 5000 pictures in my Lightroom catalogue (discounting holiday photographs which I treat differently) from the last 14 years.
Oh I really have no idea how many photos are in my collection/catalog. Ah Capture One says about 45000 🤦♂️😊 (not sure if that is with or within virtual copies, but it's everything including holiday shots)
I don't think I could cope with managing that many pictures!
Me neither, that's why I really need to do culling, otherwise I get swamped and loose drive to work on the photos. At any time the 'to develop' selection is only 0.5% of the total number 😉
Thanks for this rule Olli, this is one of the rules that I have recently introduced in the last couple of years. It has also helped my shooting to be less frenetic and because I know there are less photos, I actually enjoy going back through my photos over the years.
I think a lot of people are SUPER scared of deleting because they are thinking "well what if I actually like this photo like 5 years later, maybe I'll see something that I won't now." I think it helps that through a hard drive failure early on in my photography when I was really young I lost about a year and a half worth of shooting and as much as it pains me and saddens me, I think to this day it has made the deleting of photos and being more ruthless feel a lot easier.
I am convinced that the ones who are winning with their photography and collections aren't the ones that can shoot 20 fps but the ones who ruthlessly delete.
As you mentioned with Frank, I feel like what really makes a photographer isn't actually even the capturing of images, but the curation of them.
Thanks Michael. I too sometimes wonder if a photo I'm rejecting might be seen in a different light later. One way round this I've found is if a picture is borderline I will leave it for a while and revisit it later. In some cases later can mean years later, by which point an image may have survived multiple culls.
Like you I also mostly go for single rather than continuous shooting. On one occasion I accidently left my camera on the continuous high setting and came home with thousands of shots. Since this was my RX100 which can manage 24 fps even my normal single shot press ended up taking six or seven shots. It took hours going through them all and I've never used continuous shooting since.