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

I went though machine gun stage of shooting couple of years ago. Now instead of 500 pictures per family or local event where we go, I'll take 50, most of them are keepers.
I also take street pictures and switched for film. Not using my Rebel to take 200+ pictures as often as it used to be. 36 film exposures instead. Half keepers, sometimes

At the end of the year I go through all photos and deleting duplicates and boring pictures.
Then I'm saving it to backup HDD.
I also have Google Picasa to keep low res copies of family portraits and other pictures for my personal blog.

I also trying to minimize my gear. Switching to few L and Zeiss, instead of many non L Canon.
And for my personal use I'm happy to use 5Dc, 500D and Bessa R, Oly XA instead of 5D mkII-III, 7D and Leica.
I'm not gearhead, but photographer more and more.

This is my first digital (that wasn't a PnS or camera phone) and I haven't found myself over shooting yet. I have been taking a lot of shots just to see what the camera's auto modes are capable of so I know what I can and cannot do with it (I've never had that before). So my disclaimer is that I only have around 1200 exposures via DSLR so far, hardly a fair sample size for the question.

I find myself taking shots that I would never really go after for subject matter just to see what the lens/sensor will do in those lighting/color situations. I imagine that will never change now that there's virtually no down side to it other than a few seconds of review/triage time. It's just that the situations where I won't know what to expect will become less and less until I get new lenses and sensors that is; at which point things start over.

However now that I have gone back to some more manual shooting I do bracket and find myself taking quick shots as I approach different angles where on film I would have waited for the "right angle/PoV" hoping the moment didn't pass. I can remember many times where I was moving towards a subject where something great was happening and thinking do I have time to change rolls or go with the three exposures I have on this one and saying to myself "please please please let me get there before it's too late and let the three be enough".

I cannot believe how nice it is to only have one of those factors in play now. I'll take having to sort through extra shots any day over the other problem.

Clean Gene wrote in post #15086044
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.

This is a very good point you're making and I agree wholeheartedly with you on this. If someone takes your approach, he/she is gonna have better and worse shots. The 'visual record' argument is really good and a great way to learn. I think it's just personal preference and 'philosophy' behind your shooting that determines whether you keep or throw away the not-so-good shots.
I do, you don't.

I don't take as many personal shots anymore. I find that now that I'm starting to get paid for taking photos, I feel less need to take as many in my personal life. I still take my camera to most family events, but I'm not just walking around taking photos. I pull it out to take the photo I want then put it away, and I don't take as many duplicates. Once I upload them, I put them all into an "all" photo under the event folder, then I cull out just my favorites, usually 1/4-1/3 of the photos to edit. I put those into a separate "keepers" file and convert to jpeg. The rest of the photos aren't particularly accessible because I don't convert them to jpeg, but I know they are there if I wanted to go back and look at them later.

I don't have a routine other than shoot, look at them, process them (I very rarely nail it on the first try...I always have to rotate, work on color, etc. Sometimes I go too far and have to reset everything).

Many shots I take are junk, but sometimes good ones come out that I didn't realize at the time would be enjoyable later.

There's nothing great about this shot, except that it's my wife's father, and he and I are buddies. He doesn't care if I snap shots of him, and some are really a capture of his personality.

My keeper rate is low, but I don't care. I get a few that are great.

My biggest problem is that I rarely ever print and frame. Dumb. Pictures need to be displayed.

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I'll delete in camera... sometime protecting a few and deleting the rest in one fell swoop. Sometimes I import all to aperture and star the good ones and delete the rest. I usually keep more than 10%, usually keep 25-50%.

Every so often I'll transfer old photos from computer to external hard drive. I'll often go in and delete more there, but it's good to allow them to have the chance to pass the test of time. I've pulled out a shot or two that I liked more a year later.

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.

While it may be an important issue for you, another important issue is that duplicate threads are considered a form of spam here & are not a good idea no matter how important you might think your particular issue is.

So it's not OK.

Too many times people start a thread & it's not until 10 posts later we find out what the OP was really trying to get info about. So...
It's best if you think before you post.
Put the question in the proper place in the forum.
And maybe it's time that you reacquainted yourself with the forum rules.