This photo was taken back in July of a woman named Blair who we happened to meet near the Strand in Galveston. Larry asked her and her boyfriend, Carlos, if they'd be interested in doing some modeling for us, and they agreed. The photo was taken in the alley behind the Tremont House. It was on one of our first outings with off-camera strobes, and this particular shot was taken as most of the photographers were shooting Carlos with strobes while Blair waited patiently in a window sill. We left the photo shoot sure that we had Blair and Carlos's email addresses, but in the weeks that followed we couldn't find them. But by coincidence, Larry happened to meet a friend of Carlos's who put us in touch with them. So, earlier this week I was working on a couple of shots to put on a CD for them, and this is one that I never thought much of until now. With a little work, I think it's worthy of posting on my blog and one that I bet even Blair will like. So that brings up a question: as photographers, what's your editing process? Do you keep most of your raw shots or do you ruthlessly cull through them, keeping only the very best? Are hidden gems going in the trash or are you saving valuable disk space by permanently deleting? I'd be interested in hearing opinions...
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Blair revisited
This photo was taken back in July of a woman named Blair who we happened to meet near the Strand in Galveston. Larry asked her and her boyfriend, Carlos, if they'd be interested in doing some modeling for us, and they agreed. The photo was taken in the alley behind the Tremont House. It was on one of our first outings with off-camera strobes, and this particular shot was taken as most of the photographers were shooting Carlos with strobes while Blair waited patiently in a window sill. We left the photo shoot sure that we had Blair and Carlos's email addresses, but in the weeks that followed we couldn't find them. But by coincidence, Larry happened to meet a friend of Carlos's who put us in touch with them. So, earlier this week I was working on a couple of shots to put on a CD for them, and this is one that I never thought much of until now. With a little work, I think it's worthy of posting on my blog and one that I bet even Blair will like. So that brings up a question: as photographers, what's your editing process? Do you keep most of your raw shots or do you ruthlessly cull through them, keeping only the very best? Are hidden gems going in the trash or are you saving valuable disk space by permanently deleting? I'd be interested in hearing opinions...
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I think you should keep every RAW image you take and keep them until . . .
ReplyDeleteNOT. As you know, I am one of those who purge a very large percentage of the shots I take. I believe that you will either spend hours on "so-so" images and still not have much or you will never do anything with them. Either way, you are wasting hard drive.
Guess who?
I think Larry is too extreme...as long as you have a lot of hard drive space I think you can keep more possibilites for that chance in the future where you might learn a new technique to enhance certain images. Not keep out of focus or severely harshly lit shots, but rather ones that you could use to layer or add texture...more creative uses. I know there have been a few times where I had not gotten around to deleting everything I didn't like on the first round and then ended up using an image I had originally thought was so-so.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it is part of the learning process and as you grow as a photographer you will know better what can be worked with and what has no possibilites at all. Or --- you will fill up that hard drive and be forced to be ruthless like others we know who just do it sooner.:)
Cindi
I keep all but the very worst ones, no redeeming value no matter the software available. Hard drive space is cheap!
ReplyDeleteMany pros will burn everything to a disk, regardless of focus or surefire bad shots, cull in their editing software and not put on their hard drive. I think that is a good approach and have been working myself in that direction.
DHaass