How do you determine what is a keeper?

How do you determine what is a keeper photograph? That is, I just shot about 500 photos from a parade. Lots of kids from our martial arts class. It was a good 6 hours worth. I'm keeping most of the candids. For action shots, I throw away any that are out of focus or wrong timing. I haven't gone through all the photos, but I'm guessing I'll have about 350ish by the time I'm done. However, I think only a handful will be photos that I really like. So my keeper rate should be around 70% that I'll share with the kids and their parents or just the handful that I think will be the highlights of the parade?

For me, or for others?

If I'm shooting an event I take 3 passes through. First pass discards any blurred (focus or motion) or unrecoverable under/over-exposed and badly framed shots. Second pass discards the duplicates. Third pass re-evaluates the poor exposure and composition to see if any are worth spending time on (e.g., good expressions, someone I've not captured elsewhere). The rest are "keepers" because you never know what someone else might enjoy.

As far as what I consider worthy of posting on Flickr or here on POTN, or potentially adding to my portfolio or printing it has to be something that triggers an emotional response or shows excellence in the composition, exposure and lighting. Although I admit I sometimes add things to my Flickr that don't always meet all those criteria. Sometimes it's frustrating when I go out with a specific goal in mind and things don't come together, so I post what I feel was the best from that session and later go back to see what others think. I can be very critical of myself.

Nathan wrote in post #17587931
How do you determine what is a keeper photograph? That is, I just shot about 500 photos from a parade. Lots of kids from our martial arts class. It was a good 6 hours worth. I'm keeping most of the candids. For action shots, I throw away any that are out of focus or wrong timing. I haven't gone through all the photos, but I'm guess I'll have about 350ish by the time I'm done. However, I think only a handful will be photos that I really like. So is my keeper rate the 350ish that I'll share with the kids and their parents or just the handful that I think will be the highlights of the parade?

Heya,

Depends on the perspective.

From your perspective, the keeper rate is low. As it should be. I can't imagine 500 keepers from a parade as they'd be too similar. But from the perspective of the kids & parents, they each will have a few of themselves and consider them keepers, so your overall output of the total becomes a higher keeper rate in general, simply spread across money perspectives.

For me, keeper means a few things. Does it have the right composition? Is the facial expression one of those micro-expressions that cannot be recreated if you tried? Quality of lighting, does it give it a certain mood? Does the image in general provoke an emotion or idea? Does it remind of a memory? Is the subject something I care about? Lots of little things at play that help determine if it's a keeper for me. And something dear to me, might be a post card to someone else. It's all relative.

Very best,

A keeper is anything that fits the criteria you set out when you decided to take the shots. Photos generally break down into two groups, creative/artistic and documentary. An out of focus snapshot of a baby sitting on Grandma's knee can be a keeper, if it is the only shot you have and Grandma died two days later... but would you put that on a gallery wall and expect people to flock to it and pronounce it to be great art? As a documentary image, it's a keeper; as an artistic image it isn't.

You have to determine that for yourself. I have two levels of "keeper" I do one edit and delete images with major issues, focus, motion blur, massively missed exposure. Following that I do a second pass and selecr those that will get additional procesing. I dont delete after the second edit because storage is cheap and I have found value in the reject pile from time to time.

gonzogolf wrote in post #17588073
You have to determine that for yourself. I have two levels of "keeper" I do one edit and delete images with major issues, focus, motion blur, massively missed exposure. Following that I do a second pass and selecr those that will get additional procesing. I dont delete after the second edit because storage is cheap and I have found value in the reject pile from time to time.

ditto I sometimes go through piles of old images and suddenly I look at them with a fresh eye and bingo! Some images that I discredited myself a while ago undergo some tweaking, cropping and whatever and turn into little beauties At least in my view

itsallart wrote in post #17588079
ditto I sometimes go through piles of old images and suddenly I look at them with a fresh eye and bingo! Some images that I discredited myself a while ago undergo some tweaking, cropping and whatever and turn into little beauties At least in my view

Especially if you shoot portraits or travel stuff

gonzogolf wrote in post #17588082
Especially if you shoot portraits or travel stuff

in my case anything really.

Hmm... kept only half, so the rate was only 50%.

Technically, a "keeper" is any photo that you keep. So, those that you delete are not keepers, all others are keepers. People may use the word "keeper" to mean different things than what I just described, but in doing so, they are not using the word in accordance with its actual definition.

Thank you for stating the obvious. Question was how do you determine what is a keeper and what is not. That is, how do people decide what to delete and what not to delete?

250 shots (keepers) of a parade is a lot! And I wouldn't share anymore than about 20 with family/friends for fear of boring them... unless the family/friends happen to be IN the shots. This is all very subjective, of course.

I usually go through and delete the obvious non-keepers (as you mentioned, focus, timing, whatever). I use a rating system after that; one star during the initial run-through. Come back a little later and add a star to the better/more interesting of those. Compare similar shots side-by-side and the delete the less desirable. Probable make another pass after a break, or even a day or two, and decide which deserve three stars... interest, impact... the ones that just make me go.. "cool!"... the ones I think might look good in a photo album or on the wall.

Then, of course, have the wife come in and re-decide everything for me

I may go back months, or even years later, and cull the heard again.

Well, here's the gallery: http://www.nathantpham​.com/Vo/DotDay2015
password: vocotruyen

Still plenty of photos that are out of focus or I just plain dumb used too large of an aperture. Truth be told, I was lazy and didn't stop down when taking group photos. Also lots of photos that look repetitive, but there are some differences in how the kids posed in their routine. A few candids here and there that people might like to see.

I'd probably choose 5 or so that I really like. However, this is my father-in-law's martial arts class. He, the kids, their parents might like to take a few photos and I gave them a lot of choices.

For performances or events like you describe, my two goals are: 1) Flattering to the subject; 2) adequate coverage of the performance or event.

On my initial pass:
Mark to delete any that are obvious technical misses (exposure, focus, motion blur)
Mark to delete any that are not flatting to the subject (weird face, weird body or posture)
Mark to review any that "look good" at a first glance.

On my second pass, I count the number that "look good" and make sure the number is appropriate for the event. I'll un-mark any excess (this is sometimes the hardest part for me), and perhaps add some that didn't make the initial cut if my coverage is too low.

For stage performances & dance routines, my keeper rate is about 15-20% of what I shot. I usually aim for 6-10 finished shots for each 3-5 minute performance.

Nathan wrote in post #17588716
Thank you for stating the obvious. Question was how do you determine what is a keeper and what is not. That is, how do people decide what to delete and what not to delete?

The first round of deletions is usually easy - if something is out of focus, or not as sharp as it should be (muddled feather or hair detail), I will typically delete it. I will also immediately delete images un which the subject's tongue is out, or images in which the subject is side-jawed due to cud-chewing. And also any images in which I catch the subject in mid-blink will be deleted. Or any pose that is not really very complimentary to the subject.

The next rounds are much tougher, and consume an unbelievable amount of time. In my quest for the very best image I can shoot of any given subject at any given time, I shoot many, many, many "near duplicates". Say a subject is in one spot for a long time; I will typically take dozens or hundreds of frames, in hopes that one will be a bit better than the others. And usually, a few images will stand out from the rest. So, I will in those instances delete most of the images from the shoot, and keep only the few that really stand out.

By "stand out", I mean there will be some tiny detail about some images that is not true of the others. Perhaps there are 40 or 50 shots of a buck deer in one position, but in two or three of them, the reflection off of his eyeball is more aesthetically pleasing than it is in all of the other photos, so I'll keep those two or three and discard the rest.

Or, say I shoot a bighorn ram that is standing still, with a nice background behind him. I'll shoot as many images as I can for as long as he stands there. Perhaps I'll shoot a few dozen at f4.0, a few dozen at f5.0, a few more dozen at f6.3, again at f8.0, and again at f11. When I get the images downloaded and get to look at them on a big monitor, I can then see which depth of field produces the most aesthetically pleasing look at a given output size. Then, once I have determined which DOF has yielded the best images, I will go thru the ones taken at that aperture and find the few that are better than the others - perhaps those few stand out because his ear is cocked a certain way for a few frames, and another way for all the other frames. Maybe he held his mouth at a very slightly different position (like, open just a millimeter or two) for a couple frames. After an hour or two of very careful scrutiny, a couple of the images really do look slightly better than the others. From a shoot like that, I will typically keep at least 4 or 5 images from each aperture. Why? Well, normally, one aperture will produce the most pleasing DOF - let's just say for example that in the bighorn shoot it was f6.3. But maybe I got a wee bit better catchlight in the ram's eyes in one of the shots I took at f8.0. But maybe in that image, his mouth was a very slightly different position than it is in most of the other images, and lets say that mouth position is not as pleasing. So, you see, there will be something right in some images, but also something wrong in them. So I keep all of the image that have some small detail that is captured in a better way than it was in any of the other images.

The process requires rather intense scrutiny and a lot of concentration. Sometimes the differences are so small that I can only see them after clicking back and forth from one image to another many, many times at 100% view. But eventually I find the very, very best images. Many of the others are deleted. If I have 200 to 300 images that are almost indistinguishable from one another, there is really no need to keep all of them, is there?