We all know the temptation... to rush home from the shoot and download those images to see if all the effort was worthwhile... have we got that killer image we hoped for?
As we look through what we have in the back of our mind is all we went through to get the shots. The rise before dawn, that long drive in the dark, the back breaking walk up the hill with all that kit that cost so much, the sweat and toil. At that moment so many images seem to have cost us so much that it is hard to delete any... so they linger on our hard drive.
The bracketed exposures, the power wound images rattled off at 7 frames a second all virtually identical. While the pain and effort in getting them is so fresh in our mind it is hard to delete any because of the personal cost.
Maybe in the days of film it was good that it took a week of two for our prints to come back from the developers. Those passing days allowed the effort and pain to diminish in our minds, the fog of time clouding our memories. So when we opened the folder and did that first flick through the prints or transparencies we had distance between us and the event. The stand out images did just that - STOOD OUT. The rubbish, the mediocre was more easily discarded.
The same is true with our digital images. I sometimes think it is best to edit our images some days or even weeks after the shoot when the distance between us and the event is sufficient for us to judge the merits of our work more dispassionately. To dump all the rubbish and the almost identical shots.
Of course, I can't do it. I know it makes sense, but I have to get on and process my favorite images as soon as I return. But what I do, do, is go back over my images about once a month and be a bit more discerning with what I actually keep and a bit more ruthless with what I delete.
What is the point of keeping hundreds of images a month no one will ever look at, that even we will never look at? The wise photographer only ever shows the world his very best.
Sure, some images have sentimental value. They may be of no real artistic merit, but the expression on our child's face that was captured, the funny moment, the antics of a pet or whatever do mean much to us (perhaps even more than that masterful landscape, in the big scheme of things) and so they must be kept because they record our lives and families.
I am talking about all the other stuff that is nearly good, but not quite, the stuff where the tripod head wasn't moved but we took several shots with varying exposures just to be sure - why keep it all?
Ikea said a few years ago - 'Chuck out the chintz'... perhaps we should apply the principle to our digital files... once the pain has subsided and the early start is just a distant memory.
Friday, April 17, 2009
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2 comments:
Hi Doug, you touched upon an interesting topic. I think that every photographer faced this problem in his life.
And, indeed, I find that some of my photos look not so attractive after several months of keeping them in my hard drive. It seems that these photos lose their value as time passes by, and I begin to judge them not on the way I have taken them but on their artistic value.
got to agree Doug, although several of my most faved shots were revisits and in a fit of peak, decided to process differently...so this makes me wary of dismissing any shot, along with my untidiness and laziness... lol ..Also agree with the excitement that you get when you return from a shot, and i have got to say, my instinct on the best shot on the memory stick, has never failed to show itself quickly and obviously....reaffirming my idea that i have, by now, developed an eye for the star shot, or is that an eye for what is most popular?... sometimes not one and the same!
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