What to Keep, what to delete, and what to publish

fret_wimp2

Ive just done a new blog on my process for sorting the crap from the good, and why its necessary.

Id appreciate any input or counter arguments or other view points people may have on this.


http://www.fintangphotography.com/what-to-keep-what-to-delete-what-to-publish/

Thanks a mil guys.

dinneenp

Remove the word sh+T. It takes away frim an otherwise professional looking post. (and I'm not an old prude).

11811

I'd concur with DinneenP, I don't thunk using the word s**t really fits in with the post.

What I'd like to hear about, and see a few examples of, is the criteria you apply to what you find acceptable and not.

Also, do you apply the same process to all types of shooting or just your street stuff? I mainly deal with Landscapes so very rarely to do I arrive home with 200 images on a card!

fret_wimp2

good feedback guys. will clean up the language. Will have to wait for examples from my next outing as all my image folders have been cleaned out.

Regarding landscapes, your correct, you end up with a lot less images to begin with, but i apply the process in the exact same way, be ruthless, delete as much as possible so your left with only one or two images.

amdgilmore

I'd have a similar issue with it - as a film user I wouldn't arrive home with more than 20-30 images, regardless of the type of photography I'm doing. I fairly frequently discover a photo weeks later that can be made better with something as simple as judicious cropping.

Maybe the better advice for photographers is simply to slow down and abandon the 'spray and pray' style of shooting. There's literally no reason to take so many photos unless you're doing sports/action photography.

Deciding what to publish and what not to publish is the more universally relevant aspect of your blog, I think.

11811

amdgilmore wrote: »

Maybe the better advice for photographers is simply to slow down and abandon the 'spray and pray' style of shooting. There's literally no reason to take so many photos unless you're doing sports/action photography.

This! I think there's a better pay off to be had being ruthless behind the camera. If you feel a composition is not working before you even hit the shutter, you should edit it then. Or leave it, if you can't improve on it.

However, I think this is easier said than done and is one of the hallmarks of a great photographer! But it is surely something to aim for.

fret_wimp2

11811 wrote: »

This! I think there's a better pay off to be had being ruthless behind the camera. If you feel a composition is not working before you even hit the shutter, you should edit it then. Or leave it, if you can't improve on it.

However, I think this is easier said than done and is one of the hallmarks of a great photographer! But it is surely something to aim for.

I absolutely agree on being ruthless behind the camera. Its constantine manos who says "the best way to not take a bad photo, is to not take it!". I agree with this to a point, but when i did put this into practice, only imaging what i was sure was a good photo, I had days where i took nothing. I actually saw situations that i thought were ok, but i didnt take a pic as i wasnt sure of them 100%. So, i think there needs to be a balance, especially in street photography, where the opportunities can be few and far between and when i now find a scene, i work it, from many angles & viewpoints to give me the best chance of one decent shot.

in landscape, you have done some scouting ( probably) and have had time to walk around your scene and get the best viewpoint, so have relatively few shots, but a very high keep rate. it doesnt work like this in street, you see your opportunity, you work it as much as possible and hope, usually against hope that you got one keeper.

Whammy!

What's with the attitude it your article at the start?

The "excuse" section portraits yourself as feeling superior for being able to delete photos. I'm not advocating keeping photos.
But there are ways of discussing your methods behind deleting photos without needing to make digs at people who don't.

That point aside, I didn't see you mention why you keep the photos you do apart from mentioning that you pick the ones that catch your eye.

If you are going to be criticizing your own photos and deleting the bad ones you should at least learn along the way not to repeat those mistakes again.

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

in street photography, where the opportunities can be few and far between and when i now find a scene, i work it, from many angles & viewpoints to give me the best chance of one decent shot.

This is my point. When you find a scene and work it you should analyze the photos afterwards and make notes of the good photos and bad photo.
Why are they bad or good?
Was it the lighting, the moment, the exposure, the framing, the angle, the mood, or all the reasons mentioned?

When you realize what made the final photos good you can apply the methods behind them to new photos you shoot and increase your hit rate.
Also making note of what makes the bad photos bad rather than just deleting them can help you from repeating those mistakes in future photos, again increasing your hit rate.

It's not just a question of just being harsh and deleting photos but learning not to repeat mistakes again.
Do you want to be taking the same bad photos again and again only to delete them every time?

Maybe you do analyze your photos is this way but your article did not portray it.
Also the photo at the end didn't do much for me regarding representing the few photos kept out of 200.
The majority of the photo is a photo of another person's artwork. I don't get a sense of your style if I'm looking at another person's work. Did you pick that photo because you liked the artwork on the ground or is there a hidden meaning with the legs walking over it that I am missing?
Normally I steer away from photographing other people's artwork as it feels cheap and I never know if people like my photo for being good photography or do they just like the artwork that isn't my own.

Sorry for being harsh but that is what your article is about. Being harsh on your own work and moving forward.

fret_wimp2

Whammy! wrote: »

What's with the attitude it your article at the start?

No attitude, im saying it how i feel about it though, so its certainly not sterile.

Whammy! wrote: »

What's with the attitude it your article at the start?

The "excuse" section portraits yourself as feeling superior for being able to delete photos. I'm not advocating keeping photos.
But there are ways of discussing your methods behind deleting photos without needing to make digs at people who don't.

They are not digs, they are excuses. any other justification is another excuse!

Whammy! wrote: »

That point aside, I didn't see you mention why you keep the photos you do apart from mentioning that you pick the ones that catch your eye.

Because I take photos that please me, ones that catch my eye. If everyone in the world thinks my photo sucks but i really like it, then i dont care too much. Street photography is very subjective, much more so than most other genres. This blog is about clearing out the chaff, not about what I like in a photo, that could be a topic for another blog though.

Whammy! wrote: »

When you realize what made the final photos good you can apply the methods behind them to new photos you shoot and increase your hit rate.
Also making note of what makes the bad photos bad rather than just deleting them can help you from repeating those mistakes in future photos, again increasing your hit rate.

It's not just a question of just being harsh and deleting photos but learning not to repeat mistakes again.
Do you want to be taking the same bad photos again and again only to delete them every time?
.

theres material for another blog probably. If i put all this in one blog it would be pages long and have no real point, but would be a big blurb covering a lot of areas but not really getting any message across.

Whammy! wrote: »

Maybe you do analyze your photos is this way but your article did not portray it.

Thats a fair opinion, i dont share it, luckily its the web!

Whammy! wrote: »

Also the photo at the end didn't do much for me regarding representing the few photos kept out of 200.

its not representative so you are bang on. its just a nice picture. every photo blog should have a nice picture!

To me its a good street photograph because.
-Its not specifically about the drawing, if you look at it for half a second then you might get that but:
1. Note the drawing is half finished and has no mouth.
2. note the legs of the two people. no faces or upper torso's so they have been dehumanised. despite no identity on the people, there is still a face with a lot of expression in the image.
3. The legs are dark black and marching in sync, a little millitary like.
4. they are walking across the "face" on the ground where the mouth should be, take from that what you will.
5. there is sadness in the eye of the semi finished face that is being walked upon, unable to protest, and damaged as people walk across it.

If you wanted to take a Bresson style analysis to it:
-its made of triangles (triangles between the legs, a main triangle with the top of the head being the top of the triangle and the other two points being the widest leg of each person.
-it can work upside down, there is still geometry and direction in the image.

Im in no way saying its anything close to something Bresson would take, but im demonstrating that you need to look at an image for longer than a second, and try to take more from it than a factual account of the image contents.

Thats what street photography is about, its about capturing a split second that says something to you. if it says something to others, great but in reality if others dont like it ( and plenty wont),meh, who cares.

Unfortunately most street photography is just random pictures of a stranger. as long as the photographer doesnt know the person in the image and its in a city, its "Street". spending a few minutes looking at the image doesnt give you anything more.


Thanks for the feedback though. I accept some of it and chose to ignore other parts as its criticising the style and meaning of the paragraph and image, which are fine in my opinion.

Tenshot

I enjoyed the article, and it gave me a few things to think about.

I shoot RAW+JPEG -- I like the safety net of RAW for badly exposed shots, and the convenience of having a JPEG available instantly without any processing.

A big downside of this is that deleting photos on the PC means I need to delete both files; it's easy to screw up and delete the RAW of one file and the JPEG of its neighbour. So, I used to just import everything into Lightroom and sort everything out there. Lightroom is great but unless you have a blazing-fast system, it takes a while to work through several hundred RAW files and ultimately, it just feels like work rather than fun.

Six months ago, I decided to start doing more editing in-camera. Now, I often delete 70%+of my photos within a couple of hours of taking them.

I should mention that a lot of my photos are of my kids; for landscape stuff, I prefer to see the image on a bigger screen before dumping it. (Those photos are also a lot more premeditated, of course.)

Here's how I decide what to delete in-camera:

- Out of focus, or other technical error - gone instantly
- Decent expression? If not (scowl, eyes shut, looking away), dump it
- Poorly framed, without much hope of recovery by cropping? Gone.
- Multiple shots of the same scene - I pick 1-3 of the best, lose the rest. Occasionally, I relax this if I can't see enough detail on the LCD to make a proper decision
- If I get a one-off unusual shot, I generally keep it for later review, even if I'd normally dump it using the previous criteria

It's a simple approach, but I've found it a very useful change. Now:

- I find it much easier to grab a few minutes here and there while out and about with the camera to review the images, whereas I usually need to block out 30-60 mins to sit down with Lightroom
- Uploading images is much faster; also saving on disk space (it's cheap, but still a pain when you run out!)
- I can quickly throw up a selection of recent, unedited photos for family viewing and they're far more viewable than before
- When I do get around to properly editing the photos in Lightroom, it's a much quicker process, both importing them and also reviewing them, so it takes less time

I'm working towards not pressing the shutter on the dodgy pictures in the first place; however, one step at a time! In the meantime, this is giving me a better awareness of what works and what doesn't.

I don't agree with "If the photo doesn’t excite you enough now, its not going to suddenly grab you in 5 years time" though. I've started going through a review of all the shots I've taken over the past three years, and I'm surprised how many gems I'm finding now that I managed to miss first time around. Sometimes a bit of distance gives you a new perspective on a photo. It doesn't mean a crap shot suddenly becomes fantastic but I'm seeing new depth in shots I considered pretty mundane first time around.

PaulieC

I stopped reading after the first paragraph due to multiple grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors.

fret_wimp2

PaulieC wrote: »

I stopped reading after the first paragraph due to multiple grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors.

Excellent, you are part of the demographic i try to avoid, so result!

PaulieC

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

Excellent, you are part of the demographic i try to avoid, so result!

well done you. You asked for feedback, but are not willing to take it.

DaireQuinlan

FYP

PaulieC wrote: »

I stopped reading after the first paragraph due to multiple grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors.

Lynne Truss wrote:

There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and those who don't, and I'll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been taken.

fret_wimp2

PaulieC wrote: »

well done you. You asked for feedback, but are not willing to take it.

I would imagine if spelling mistakes prevent you reading articles you dont get to the end of very many books, articles or anything really!

Purposefully adding a spelling mistake and, some bad punctation to, this scentence, so you probably wont read farther than this line!

Im Happy to accept constructive feedback, of which there has been lots so far. Not into the whole "That guy misspelled a word on the internet, I MUST correct him!" attitude.


Thanks for taking the time to post all the same!:)

Tiriel

It's feedback and it's pretty valid too. It might not be seen as the most constructive feedback to you, but to others spelling and punctuation really does make the difference between continuing to read an article or simply moving on.

For me, the errors were noticeable too but I kept reading. It has actually made me think about my own process (or lack of). I need to figure out a better way, because at the moment I'm just shooting and keeping everything. Disaster!

PaulieC

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

Im Happy to accept constructive feedback, of which there has been lots so far. Not into the whole "That guy misspelled a word on the internet, I MUST correct him!" attitude.


Thanks for taking the time to post all the same!:)

It is constructive. I found the errors to be distracting from the thrust of the blog, but sure we'll agree to disagree.

amdgilmore

Listen... speaking as a neutral observer: even in an informal medium like blogging, it's a simple fact that when the first word of a blog post is misspelled it's going to cast the author in a negative light. It indicates a lack of attention to detail and instantly makes the reader wonder if you're actually an authority. That's just the way it is.

So I do think the previous criticism is constructive. Why distract the reader from what might be valid ideas with mistakes that can be corrected in ten seconds?

fret_wimp2

Fair enough guys, I'll keep an eye on the spelling. Its genuinely something I never considered too much, in my head ranks quite lowly in comparison to content, and would never prevent me reading an article.

The phrasing of the comment on spelling also got my back up a little, less like constructive critique and more like the wording of a troll, although it seems that's not the case. I've been there before, having a good discussion on the internet and some guy who feels his point is not being heard decides to rag on spelling mistakes rather than the topic of hand, and I wanted to shut that down immediately.

appreciate the feedback.

PaulieC

Looking back at my post, I can appreciate that it looks a bit snarky, wasn't meant to be.