What are your criteria for keeping (or shooting) personal shots?

We've all gone through this (phase). We got our digital camera's, shooting like crazy, because it was 'free' anyway to shoot as much as we could; only to come home with a memory card with way too many shots.
50% of them are near-exact duplicates of another, another 30% are just boring or don't really serve a purpose and 10% are just failed shots (oof, bad exposure etc.). Only 10% is good enough to post on the net without feeling very emberassed.

I'm strictly speaking for your personal work, because obviously there's a big difference between am and pro work.

Two questions concerning this 'issue', as we might call it.

- How many of your shots do you keep given the above statistics?
- Did you change your shooting style to avoid the above problem?

Some people might think it doesn't hurt to have way too many shots on your computer as storage is dirt cheap anyway. Others might throw away all the failed ones, or ones where there isn't really anything happening, while keeping all the duplicates.

Personally, in the above situation, I would throw all but the 10% that are decent away. I, too, have been guilty of shooting thoughtlessly, filling up my CF cards with way too many shots. I have been approaching this problem much differently though, also because I've been shooting quite some film in the last 6 months. Unless a shot failed horribly, I won't take it again. There seems to be something about keeping photography 'pure' in the sense you shouldn't burst at everything you see, in the hope that something turns out alright and that you capture that 'special' moment. Instead, I'm much more considerate, anticipating cool images and being on the ready when the shot I'm looking for is 'happening'.
Even then, I still end up with boring, bad, failed shots I don't like. While I take way less shots, I end up with MUCH more keepers. Not only do I feel less bad a photog, but it also saves me TONS of work while sorting out your images (if you do that, that is).

Also, I've taken a much different approach as to what I think is important as far as shots go. A good example would be when I was at one of the most prestigious Uni's in both the US and the world: Harvard. Walking around campus, everybody was taking pictures of building and statues (preferably with them in front of them *puke* :roll. Now, the question is: what is the purpose of that? I'll never forget I went to Harvard, because it would be very hard to forget, and if I have the strongest urge to see what it looks like, Google (Maps) does an amazing job at showing me 697.000.000 in 0.22 seconds. Am I the only one thinking that way or would you shoot that '10000000x shot before shot' too? Instead I looked for something entirely different, ending up with one of my favorite shots.

That day I ended up with a lot of pics from my sis and mum as well. Some really nice ones. Too be honest: too many nice ones. I had both 10 good shots of my sister and mother. Now what? Delete the ones that are crappy: done. Then I still have 20 shots. Am I going to keep all those?
Lately this has been very easy for me: no. I keep one or two, maybe three, and discard the rest.
Why, you might ask? Storage is cheap! The thing is: What are you eventually going to do with your shots? Are you going to print them or share them online? Sure! Keep 'em! But when you know you're not going to do anything with it, why keep it? I know what my mom looks like and even though I discard most and only end up with a couple each time, I have hundreds of pics of all my family members. Are those couple hundred (less nice) extra's really going to add something? I don't think so. Actually, I think it takes away from it.
I like to think of my library as one big portfolio. That doesn't mean only my best work ends up in there, but I try to keep the bad shots out. You woulnd't post fillers on your portfolio, right? Just your best work ends up there. Of course I won't throw away everything that I wouldn't hang on my wall, but I think it's a good guideline to shoot and manage your files by.
Lastly, I would add, that I go through my older folders quite regularly, trying to delete as much photo's as I can, without feeling bad about it. First of all, it's great to review your old work and look at it with a fresh look. You learn a ton from it!
Secondly, you can see how much progress you made (and see how bad you used to be ), which is always good motivation!
Third, becoming a better photographer also means I'm much less content with the shots I take. This means that I can go through my folders, deleting files every time I go through 'em, because my criteria sharpened as to what's a good shot. I had a folder with about 1100 photo's in them from a four week vacation to Spain last year. How many are there in it now? About 450. Having gone through the album three or so times, I managed to get down to that number and I can honestly say, I'm nothing but content. I still have my best pictures, I still know what we did that vacation and got all the cool things covered and, best of all, my album is a third the size, with ONLY good pictures (although when writing this, I could probably delete another 50 ) - a LOT more fun to look back at then 'skipping' two thirds of the pictures because you don't like them anyway.


Well, that turned out to be quite longer than I figured it would, but I think it's a useful thing to read. Think about how you shoot. This works for me - and for some it might not - but I think it's a great way of not only having less file nitpicking to do when you download you files and getting better as a photographer, (because you review your work, take your shots more carefully and think about them before shooting) but looking back at your work will also be much more enjoyable.

Input, thoughts, how do you shoot, which shots do you keep? Discuss!

I cull really bad misses but I'm pretty easy with my criteria for keeping personal shots. That said I rarely process/show everything.

As you say, storage is cheap, and my family is growing up every day. In 20+ years I don't think technical flaws will worry me as much as knowing I deleted a whole heap of photos because of some arbitary, subjective measure.

TijmenDal wrote in post #15082163
50% of them are near-exact duplicates of another, another 30% are just boring or don't really serve a purpose and 10% are just failed shots (oof, bad exposure etc.). Only 10% is good enough to post on the net without feeling very emberassed.

- How many of your shots do you keep given the above statistics?

Well, first of all, the above statistics are quite different than what I experience. For me, it's more like:

70% of them are near-exact duplicates of another.
20% are just boring or don't really serve a purpose.
70% are just failed shots (oof, bad exposure etc.).
Only 15% are good enough to keep.

I realize that my statistics overlap; add up the percentages and it's over 100%. That's because many of those that are near-duplicates are also failed shots.

Almost all of my work is done at very long focal lengths, and because of that, only a small percentage will be truly sharp. Also, due to extremely shallow DOF with the long focal lengths, many will not be perfectly focused, especially when focus/recompose is necessary, as it is for well over 60% of my images.

I don't throw away anything.

"What are you eventually going to do with your shots?"

I don't know. Probably nothing. But I can't do anything with them if I throw them away. Very rarely do I look at a capture and know for a fact that I can't ever do anything with it.

Clean Gene wrote in post #15084551
I don't throw away anything.

"What are you eventually going to do with your shots?"

I don't know. Probably nothing. But I can't do anything with them if I throw them away. Very rarely do I look at a capture and know for a fact that I can't ever do anything with it.

But it your dog was sitting on a dock, just sitting there, and you too 50 or 60 shots within 2 or 3 minutes - from the exact same position, using several different settings - you mean you would keep all 50 or 60 shots? Even if they all look about the same? At 20 MB's per file, that hogs up a lot of space!

I would just pick the 4 or 5 that turned out the best and trash the rest.

(just an example; you may not even have a dog . . . or a dock!)

Clean Gene wrote in post #15084551
I don't throw away anything.

"What are you eventually going to do with your shots?"

I don't know. Probably nothing. But I can't do anything with them if I throw them away. Very rarely do I look at a capture and know for a fact that I can't ever do anything with it.

Ok, fair enough. But what about the philosophy/deeper meaning behind photography. Maybe you don't approach it as that, but don't you think it's objectionable to have shots (or shoot shots) just for the sake of being shot? Don't you think a photograph should serve a purpose.
That's one of my main issues with digital photography: everybody shoots, without thinking and without having a meaning behind the shots you shoot. Are 3 awesome pictures not going to be negatively influenced when you have 57 other crappy ones? Or are you ever going to look at the 57 worse ones when you have 3 good ones?

I would shoot the 50 or 60 shots so as to assure myself that I get the very best image possible.

Among 50+ practically identical images, one or two are bound to be a hair better than the others. This difference may only be visible at high magnification on a large monitor.

I will spend considerable time going thru all of those images, zooming in real close to visually evaluate fine hair detail on the dog, as well as quality of background blur, slight shifts in the exact angle the dog held his head, and the affect that may have had on any fine shadow detail on his face, and similar factors. Then, after quite some time scrutinizing all of the images, I will select the few that are ever so slightly better than the others, edit them carefully, and save them.

At that point, I see no reason to keep any of the other "lesser" images. It would seem senseless to keep them all; the only reason I shot so many in the first place was to get the couple of superior ones.

There are so many extremely minor changes going on at the pixel level that a photographer cannot control. The best way I know of to optimize image quality is to shoot a lot, spend hours on the monitor, and finally determine which are a tiny bit better than the rest.

This is the process that so many call "pixel peeping", and I find it well worth while when it results in marginally better imagery.

So, I'm not trying to be a real PITA here, but didn't you just resurrect your thread from a week ago? This is exactly the same thing you asked back then. I know there wasn't a whole lot of response in that one, but why start a new thread with exactly the same postulations? What is it that you're really trying to get to/find out?

Snydremark wrote in post #15084914
So, I'm not trying to be a real PITA here, but didn't you just resurrect your thread from a week ago? This is exactly the same thing you asked back then. I know there wasn't a whole lot of response in that one, but why start a new thread with exactly the same postulations? What is it that you're really trying to get to/find out?

That's ok. And I did.

Trying to find out how people approach photography. I think this is a very big and important issue with the introduction of digital photography and I just want to address and see what others think and have to say.

I cull from time to time. I usually go back once a year to see if there's anything I want to retouch and reedit. Or things I want deleted. But, I really just try to rate everything so I know if I want to do something with them or not.

I will say I have a hard time throwing things away though, but I do try and keep my photos at least somewhat organized.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #15084662
But it your dog was sitting on a dock, just sitting there, and you too 50 or 60 shots within 2 or 3 minutes - from the exact same position, using several different settings - you mean you would keep all 50 or 60 shots? Even if they all look about the same? At 20 MB's per file, that hogs up a lot of space!

I would just pick the 4 or 5 that turned out the best and trash the rest.

(just an example; you may not even have a dog . . . or a dock!)

Well, I like to think that I wouldn't take 50 or 60 nearly identical shots in the first place.

But it's obviously case-specific. Sure, I was exaggerating when I said that I never delete anything...there are absolutely cases when I'll delete something. But it's very rare. And absent something like forgetting to take the lens cap off, or the image being so poorly exposed that I end up with nothing but total black or total white, I can't speculate on a situation that warrants deletions until I'm looking at those images.

Also, keep in mind that I'm not trying to present my way as the right way.Plenty of photographers delete a LOT of their images. I wouldn't do that. But hell...if that's working for them, then who am I to say that they're wrong?

TijmenDal wrote in post #15084826
Ok, fair enough. But what about the philosophy/deeper meaning behind photography. Maybe you don't approach it as that, but don't you think it's objectionable to have shots (or shoot shots) just for the sake of being shot? Don't you think a photograph should serve a purpose.
That's one of my main issues with digital photography: everybody shoots, without thinking and without having a meaning behind the shots you shoot. Are 3 awesome pictures not going to be negatively influenced when you have 57 other crappy ones? Or are you ever going to look at the 57 worse ones when you have 3 good ones?

Just because I keep shots that don't get used doesn't mean that they were shot "for the sake of being shot".

Also, an image being flawed enough that it doesn't get used does not inherently mean that it was done without thought. Perhaps it was an "exploring the subject" thing, or a kind of experimentation. I wasn't quite sure what would work, so I approached the shoot from multiple angles. I don't think that equates to a "machine gun approach" or "shooting without thought and intent". And furthermore, if I'm actually experimenting rather than just shooting thoughtlessly, then a visual record of what didn't work can be just as important (if not moreso) than a visual record of what did work.

That's just the thing...thinking before shooting and having a meaning behind the shot doesn't mean it's gonna be a good photograph. Sometimes it's still just a bad photograph. But I've reached the point where the vast majority of my bad photographs have an underlying good reason for being made in the first place. Sure...it didn't work. But I don't personally see that as a failure, and I'm personally not so eager to just erase it. I don't show it, but it's entirely possible for a bad photograph to provide valuable information to me later on down the road. And I actually DO occasionally go back and look at some of my worst photographs. Even if I still don't use them for anything, sometimes I'll see the nice idea behind a crappy photo and get an inkling to go back and do the same thing better.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #15084863
I would shoot the 50 or 60 shots so as to assure myself that I get the very best image possible.

Among 50+ practically identical images, one or two are bound to be a hair better than the others. This difference may only be visible at high magnification on a large monitor.

I will spend considerable time going thru all of those images, zooming in real close to visually evaluate fine hair detail on the dog, as well as quality of background blur, slight shifts in the exact angle the dog held his head, and the affect that may have had on any fine shadow detail on his face, and similar factors. Then, after quite some time scrutinizing all of the images, I will select the few that are ever so slightly better than the others, edit them carefully, and save them.

At that point, I see no reason to keep any of the other "lesser" images. It would seem senseless to keep them all; the only reason I shot so many in the first place was to get the couple of superior ones.

There are so many extremely minor changes going on at the pixel level that a photographer cannot control. The best way I know of to optimize image quality is to shoot a lot, spend hours on the monitor, and finally determine which are a tiny bit better than the rest.

This is the process that so many call "pixel peeping", and I find it well worth while when it results in marginally better imagery.

And see...my approach is sort of the opposite. Most of the images I love are images that just hit me hard upon first glance. Granted, the fine down-to-the-hair details are also extremely important. But that isn't enough to save an image that just plain doesn't have much overall impact in the first place. And if I see an image that just really has a lot of visual and emotional punch right on first glance, then I'm usually going to be totally okay with some of the really tiny fine details that aren't evident unless one really looks close.

That's just how my visual aesthetic works. I'm very tolerant of other photographers' little mistakes if the overall image is just very powerful right off the bat. So that's sort of how I approach my photography.

I wouldn't take 50 or 60 almost identical shots in the first place. I'd take a few almost identical shots trying to fine tune something like exposure or focus, then I go straight to making BIG changes. I might take 50 or 60 shots of the dog, and maybe only one shot works. But those 50 or 60 shots aren't almost identical. It'd maybe be 3 almost identical shots of the dog looking peacefully over the water, 2 almost identical shots of the dog chasing his tail from a completely different angle, and so forth. They'd all be shots of the dog, but I sure wouldn't devote the whole shoot to fine details. Those 50 or 60 shots would include lots of BIG changes. Then I'd pick the images that overall have the most impact, and decide if the down-to-the-hair flaws kill the image.

That's just how I work.

I'm not saying that's the way to work. If that's the way you work, then it totally might make sense to delete 70% of your photos. But I simply don't do that. So, given the way I work, deleting most of my images is simply just a bad idea. I might have gotten a powerful image that was ruined because the dog's eyes weren't sharp enough, and I'm fine with that. A year later, I might look over my failed photographs, see that image and say, "damn...I wish that dog's eyes were in better focus because that would have just made the image. In fact, now I think I'm gonna go do that."

I'm simply not much of a "pixel peeper." Sure...I pixel peep when editing. But I don't do that when looking at other peoples' work. That's generally not my approach when LOOKING at photographs, that translates to not being my aproach when MAKING photographs. So if I'm gonna take 60 pictures of a dog, most of them simply won't be "nearly identical" in the first place. I still might only get one decent image, but the other 59 images aren't "almost identical" to it. Most of the failures are going to have BIG differences, so I just can't justify deleting them. The way I approach photography for the most part just doesn't result in 50 images that are almost exactly the same.

TijmenDal wrote in post #15085143
That's ok. And I did.

Trying to find out how people approach photography. I think this is a very big and important issue with the introduction of digital photography and I just want to address and see what others think and have to say.

Weird that this thread got more replays than that one. I wonder why that happened

TijmenDal wrote in post #15082163
50% of them are near-exact duplicates of another, another 30% are just boring or don't really serve a purpose and 10% are just failed shots (oof, bad exposure etc.). Only 10% is good enough to post on the net without feeling very emberassed.

I'd say your percentages are about right for me too, and of that "acceptable" ten percent, 1 out of every 5 are photos I think I am the only person who would enjoy them.