Part SEVENTEEN: Working For Yourself

To Delete, or not to Delete? That is the question
Whether ’tis nobler for the Photographer to suffer
The slings and arrows of slow running software,
Or to create space against a sea of pixels,

And, by deleting, end them? To cull, to delete
No more, and by a delete to say we end
The storage and the thousand crappy shots
That image is heir to, ’tis a blurry one
Poorly to be viewed! To delete, to cull.
To cull, perchance to delete, ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of delete what space may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal hard drive

With wicked apologies to the Bard: Billy Shakespeare! And his favorite photographer, Hamlet

Seriously, though, today, we’re going to discuss to Delete Or Not To Delete

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Look at anyone’s Lightroom catalog, and they will tell you, "I have tons of images.”
In fact, I’ll bet, too many! In film days, we couldn’t collect, too many because, we physically needed space to hold on to them. We were more ruthless when it came time to deciding what to keep. We had to be.

Today, we shoot digitally, and thousands can be stored on a device the size of the thumb. But still, you need to be reasonable. I will say, I keep a copy of every image shot in backup, and on my external drives.
But in Lightroom? No, sir.

Do you need twelve images of essentially the same shot, slightly different angle?
Do we need two thousand shots of a Great Blue Heron? Three hundred of the same water fall, only moments apart? Shooting on digital, it’s easy to collect a spray of 3, 5, or even 7 shots, bracketed, with slightly different exposure, or aperture. Or shoot an Eagle as it lifts off and flies overhead. Is every single shot The Shot, or A Keeper?

Where do you draw the line on too many? And how do you decide?

For me, I go through a sort of step by step:
• In people, wildlife, etc… are the eyes in focus?
• If not, then, does the image have ANY other value?
• Is the background OK? Or is there a sign growing out of someone’s head?
• Is it poorly framed?
• Did the bird move mostly out of frame?

Get rid of it, if it does not. (Worst case, you still have it on your backup drives)
Let me rephrase that: Get rid of it, if it does not. (Worst case, you still have it on your backup drives)

When do I make exceptions?
• First, and most importantly: Is it my family? Does the image have sentimental value?
• Is it the only shot I have of that kind of bird, or deer, or whale?
• See the first two.
• Is it a bad, slightly out of focus image of Elvis and Big Foot, singing a Duo, in a coffee bar, in the ‘burbs. (With Apologies to Shawn Carey, Migration Production, a mentor and friend, who has taught me much in Wildlife Photography.)

There’s a reason behind my delete/cull madness!
Frankly, I need to be efficient. … and, with a few thousand images, already in Lightroom, search and retrieval needs to be fast, and easy on me.

If you are a new photographer, develop good habits early. Cull and Be Ruthless deleting images. A bad shot today, blurry, and overexposed will not get better next week. The aperture will not be fixed, the focus ring will not change, on a shot already made.

If you are an experienced photographer, keeping thousands of images for the sake of keeping thousands of images is bad practice. Delete and be ruthless! Push yourself to get better images of the ones you removed from Lightroom.

Always push forward.
The value of presenting ONLY your best work, publicly cannot be overstated.
If you want people to see you as a photographer, a serious photographer, then, only present your best work.
Or, label it as an experiment, to try something and a stretch to see if a new technique works.