Deletion Friday

[Indigo November]

I have so many photographs that are "okay", and I can never bring myself to delete them.
They are technically fine, but kind of boring.

So I've decided to make Fridays my deletion day.
I think it will help to stick to a schedule with it. That way I have committed to deleting photos, and can't back out.
I'll delete the worst ones every Friday and eventually I'll be left with the best!


And I'm telling you all because it's all the more incentive not to skip. Now others know and I'll be less likely to cheat. lol


So, how do you do it? How do you bring yourself to trash things that aren't "bad"?
Any tips?

[candidrachel]

"I'll do it tomorrow" is what I say but you know "tomorrow" never arrives. I have so many photos of the same thing and can't decide which one is the best out of the set so I keep them all there. Silly I know.

Good for you Indigo having a plan.

[Jim Bryant]

I do that each time I edit after a shoot. Weed out the bad and ugly keep the good. Performing this together on the same day leads to a good work flo. Why? If you postpone weeding out the good from the bad and ugly, something will aways come up on your planned day.

[UlpilotSC]

Originally Posted by Jim Bryant

I do that each time I edit after a shoot. Weed out the bad and ugly keep the good. Performing this together on the same day leads to a good work flo. Why? If you postpone weeding out the good from the bad and ugly, something will aways come up on your planned day.

I wish I could convince my wife I dont have to keep everything. Last year we went to disney world. I took around 500 pictures (all raw), which total 11.2gb. There are some good ones, and some pretty crappy ones. Im picking through the ones I want to get rid of, and my wife says "why delete anything?" I say "thats WHY I bracketed the shots - so I could chose the best exposure out of three, when shooting in the mid afternoon unshaded florida sun!"

She makes me keep it all. At least 1TB drives are cheaper now.

[karen_s]

I go thru and rate as the images download (to Lightroom). Some are obvious rejects and those go first. Then, I move the remaining images to a folder called "goThrough". I go through them again within a week or so and delete more. After that, I move them to their final folder and when I am in a de-cluttering kinda mood, I delete even more. I keep a lot of family candids and silly dog pictures, but get tough with everything else. I have even gone back a few years to cull. I kept way too many images back then.

[SwissJon]

Call me superstitious, but that's not something I'd do on Friday 13th.

I'd also only delete everything older than 1 month, and always make sure you keep 1 or 2 from memorable occasions, mates birthdays etc, even if they're crap. You may be a photographer, but you're still human, and memories are memories.

But I think thats a bloody good idea, and I'll join you next Friday.

[Jim Bryant]

Originally Posted by karen_s

I go thru and rate as the images download (to Lightroom). Some are obvious rejects and those go first. Then, I move the remaining images to a folder called "goThrough". I go through them again within a week or so and delete more. After that, I move them to their final folder and when I am in a de-cluttering kinda mood, I delete even more. I keep a lot of family candids and silly dog pictures, but get tough with everything else. I have even gone back a few years to cull. I kept way too many images back then.

I do the same when using either Photomechanics or Aperture3. However...anything fuzzy, out of focus, with camera movement or just plain crap gets trashed before I show anything.
My wife, who's a very fine editor, (thank god for that) will normally ask, "Why keep that when you have better images?"

[LenDog]

[QUOTE=Jim Bryant;My wife, who's a very fine editor, (thank god for that) will normally ask, "Why keep that when you have better images?"[/QUOTE]

Thank God for our Wives, mine usually says "Hmmmm...", which translates to "Delete now".

[Indigo November]

Originally Posted by Jim Bryant

I do that each time I edit after a shoot. Weed out the bad and ugly keep the good. Performing this together on the same day leads to a good work flo. Why? If you postpone weeding out the good from the bad and ugly, something will aways come up on your planned day.

Yeah, I need to do that.
But first I have to go through everything since April 2010!

Originally Posted by SwissJon

Call me superstitious, but that's not something I'd do on Friday 13th.

I'd also only delete everything older than 1 month, and always make sure you keep 1 or 2 from memorable occasions, mates birthdays etc, even if they're crap. You may be a photographer, but you're still human, and memories are memories.

But I think thats a bloody good idea, and I'll join you next Friday.

I like to ignore all superstitions. No, that is the wrong word, I like to coax superstition to bite me in the arse.
Tempting black cats to cross my path. Walking under every ladder I see.
I laugh at Friday the 13. 'Tis my favorite day!

[Jim Bryant]

Originally Posted by LenDog

Thank God for our Wives, mine usually says "Hmmmm...", which translates to "Delete now".

I'm with ya on that!