My photography workflow tends to go something like this:
- Take lots of photos
- Backup all my files
- Delete photos that are obvious duds
- Process one or two photos that grab my immediate attention
- Allow files to age
- Delete photos that are duds
- Edit the rest
- Backup all my files
Step 5 is an important step for me. It gives me a chance to step back and then re-evaluate the files before I decide what I want to keep. Files I decide to keep generally fall into two categories, photos to sell and memory photos. The photos in this post fall into the second category. I’ve edited them to keep for my personal collection, but won’t post them for sale:
How long do I let my files sit at step 5? At least a year. In this case, I am writing this is early May 2019 and the photos were taken in July 2018. I’m not in a huge hurry to delete files, but it is something that I continually work on, and a year is usually sufficient time to wait and come back with a more critical eye.
These photographs were taken of the Siege Bell and War Memorial in Malta. It dominates the landscape of the harbor of Valetta, although I think these photos don’t quite tell that part of the story. Two of the photos were taken on a boat trip, hence the faster shutter speed, the landscape wasn’t moving but I was!
Do you like these snapshots? Do you allow your photo files to age before deleting them? Feel free to leave a comment below.
Cheers!
Inspired by and a last-minute contribution to A Photo A Week Challenge, Three of a Kind.
Photography Journal Blog 
I like your photos. They’re very nice. But since I don’t sell mine, I edit them whenever and normally just for fun and to learn new things. But my pictures aren’t really that important to me. If my computer melted down right now, I wouldn’t mourn the loss of my pictures. So there’s that.
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Thanks. That’s interesting because I am very attached to my photos 🙂 I do have backups just so I hopefully won’t ever lose them, but also I have come to terms with the fact that if the house burned down, I would lose most of them, I think I’d be upset about that.
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You are a lot more diligent with your photos than me. I take far too many photos and a lot of bad ones. I sometimes delete the awful ones but need to be a bit more organised at doing that 🙂
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That’s both the nice thing and the bad thing about digital right? You can take so many and really it isn’t all that expensive to keep a bunch of them too, that can kind of take away the incentive to be more selective.
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I don’t know if I could handle waiting a year before publishing my photos! I’m usually so excited about them that I want to share them right away. I also am loath to delete any, unless they are abject failures.
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Yes, so quite often I don’t wait! But, I do wait on the deletion decision, and honestly, after a year’s time, I do think I make less emotional editing decisions. By less emotional I mean I’m less likely to be so sure that the photo is like the best! ever!!!
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How very organised you are, Amy. I love all of the photos you show us. 🙂
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Thanks very much. If I wasn’t somewhat organised, I’d be drowning in digital files lol.
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😱
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It’s always a good idea to allow for some distance in time between capturing and editing the photos. My workflow is pretty similar to yours, except I never delete any files, but just pick out and mark the ones I want to proceed with. Maybe five years from now I would see a potential in a photo I would discard today. 🙂
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Yes, I do think there is an argument for keeping all your files. And certainly, with the cost of drives and other means of storage, it’s not unreasonable to think to do so. For me though, it’s ultimately too many things, I get a bit anxious about that, so better for me to have a method to discard files.
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Amy, I am captured by the angle of the camera on the Siege Bell. Looking upward like that, with the strong lines upward through the image – engaging and powerful. And, it reminds me to think of considering other points-of-view when I write a piece of prose, not the first one that comes to mind, maybe.
– And thanks for detailing your organizing process around images and your collection. It reminds me that I also benefit from letting my writing pieces “age,” and maybe at least a year is a possible thought for them. There is an immediacy to the outcome of the creative effort that impedes one’s perspective, at times, right? Thanks again! – Theresa
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I think there is, if I’m too close, I tend to be too positive, like so sure that this is the best photo ever and everyone should love it!! Only later do I see some technical problem or realise I was just excited about the experience itself. It’s a balancing act for sure.
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Haha, yes, I can see that. “Excited about the experience,” that happens to me too, I realize!
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One step I do which is very important for me is to backup my images after I get them on the computer and then delete them of my memory card. Never delete them off the memory card until images are backed up in at least two places first. I learned that the hard way.
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Yes, I do a backup before deleting off the card too. I’ve not yet gotten tripped up by that, but I feel like that’s such a common issue, I’ve tried to learn by listening to other’s experiences with that.
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Lovely photos – I must get to Malta one day.
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Yes, a history nerds paradise really, plus nice beaches!
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Amy I definitely like your process. Our problem lies in letting things age far too long. We need a major purge of most every photo folder we have. We have them backed up, even the duds. We really need to take on a strategy such as yours.
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For such a huge project like this, I find it helpful to just break it up in little chunks. I rarely delete files for more than 45 minutes at a time. If I look at this type of clean-up in its totality, I find that too overwhelming.
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