Live With Your Photos Before You Delete
I am a ceramic artist with a passion for photography and I firmly believe that everyone out there has the ability to take a fantastic photo.
It doesn’t matter what sort of camera you use, whether it is a DSLR or the camera in your phone. A good photo is all about using your eye and really looking at the world around you.
All aspiring photographers should occasionally stop, take a breath and simply watch the play of light and shadow, enjoy the view and drink the life around you in with your eyes. Look, really look deeply for a minute or two at your chosen subject and then take the photograph.
When I was first starting out on my artistic journey I was an impatient beginner, I would throw a pot on the wheel, be unhappy with its form and so into the slop bucket it went. I would work hard all day trying to make the perfect pot and at the end of the day I would have a slop bucket full to the brim with my failed attempts at perfection. At the end of my first year of study I only kept one pot I was happy with.
An established ceramist gave me a very valuable piece of advice. Herme Cornelisse told me to stop throwing my work away so quickly. She told me that each pot I made had merit and that sometimes you need to live with your work for a while before the qualities are truly revealed.
It wasn’t until the end of my second year of study that I really started to understand Herme’s advice. I stopped being so hard on myself and I started to keep more of my own work, I started to keep pots that, whilst not perfect in form or function, had something about them that appealed to me. These imperfect pots have since become the inspiration for work that I am making today.
This is what I would say to all aspiring photographers, don’t be so quick to hit the delete button. Live with your photos for a bit. Allow the images to breathe for a while and come back and revisit them when you are in a different frame of mind.
I will illustrate what I mean. Here is a very ordinary photo, I took lots of very similar shots on the day. As I was scrolling through my image files pressing delete, delete, delete and pretending to be a dalek I noticed a speck on top of the rocks.
On closer inspection the speck turned out to be a man on the rocks. I magnified the image to 100x and cropped the photo until I was happy with the proportions of man to rock to sky. I fiddled about with the exposure until I was satisfied with the colour of the sky, as to my eye the original photo looked a bit washed out. I increased the contrast a small amount and also raised the percentage of black by a couple of percent to highlight the shadowy spaces between the rocks until I liked the feel of the image.
I often wonder what that fellow on the rocks is doing and each time I see this image on my wall I smile. It isn’t the best photo in the world and it won’t win any technical awards but I am very pleased that I paused for that instant before I pressed the delete button.
Another example of looking twice at a photo is this following image. I was filling up the wood box in the kitchen when the colours in this piece of wood caught my eye. The combination of the green on the black charcoal would look fabulous on a pot and so I quickly snapped a photo.
When I was looking at the photo on my computer I was struck by the figurative qualities of the log of wood and I also noticed how interesting the background was as well. Again with only a few minor edits in photoshop a very ordinary photo becomes an interesting Arty shot. This photo is hanging on the wall in my studio and it serves as a reminder for me to always look deeper, to stop for a moment and just breathe, to remember that the most important tools I have are my eyes and to not be too quick to throw away any of my work.
Kim Foale is a ceramic artist, based just outside of Hobart, Tasmania. You can find Kim blogging at Frog Ponds Rock, tweeting at @frogpondsrock or on facebook as Frogpondsrock. If you are ever in Hobart, Kim’s ceramics are available at the Off Centre Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, Salamanca place Hobart.
47 Responses to “Live With Your Photos Before You Delete” - Add Yours
November 18th, 2011 at 12:35 am
Which is why I dream of the 64megapixel sensor. so I can take the “junk” shots and crop them to 18-24 megapixel “perfect” shots.
IF image resolution get’s high enough we will not need to take the time to frame correct anymore, just point in the general direction and crop later.
November 18th, 2011 at 12:35 am
Indeed, with the current cheap storage available, I never delete any photo (I’m using Lightroom as catalogue) : you never know it might be usefull one day, or one’s opinion might change a year later about that particular bad item.
Yes, I regularly (twice a year) browse my whole catalogue
(+/- 50 000 pictures).
Regarts;
Ruben
November 18th, 2011 at 1:17 am
until that day, we must learn to frame.
or get a wide angle lens with one of these:
Sorry, can’t post the link for some reason. just google “phase one IQ180″
November 18th, 2011 at 1:34 am
I so identify with this post. After every vacation I cry that all my shots are a waste. And a month after that I wonder why on earth I was so disappointed. For me actually the eyes hold much more beauty than I cam make my camera to hold, hence I almost hate my pics in the beginning but as you say, let them grown a little or let my memory fades a little, I do like some of my photographs.
November 18th, 2011 at 1:38 am
Why would you dream of cropping? What’s the point of shooting and cropping. Sounds like Tim isnt very good at composition…
November 18th, 2011 at 2:52 am
Hi
I keep all of my RAW files just in case they come in handy at some later point. I was once the deleting maniac and then kicked myself around the block when I realized a Client wanted just the type of images I scrapped. Storage is cheap, time and effort is not.
Many months after an event, a Client came back and asked if they could have this shot of their Gavel – luckily I had saved it and voila!
http://kerstenbeckphotoart.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/heed-the-gavel/
November 18th, 2011 at 3:16 am
The photographer in me really enjoyed this article. The geek in me loved the Doctor Who reference!
November 18th, 2011 at 5:14 am
@timberswiss3 – Not every branch of photography is the same as yours!!! I shoot wildlife actions shots almost exclusively. When an eagle is attacking the water and grabbing a trout you have absolutely no time to compose. I shoot with center focal point, fast continuous drive, spot metering, AI Servo autofocus and 18 MP sensor. It is hard enough to keep the focal point on the eagle as he dives very fast and that is about as good as you can hope for in this type of photography. What this means is that every good capture has the eagle CENTERED in the shot, so I crop for composition!!! I usually end up with an image around 12 MP in size which is way better than most cameras have today much less a few years ago when 12 MP was only a dream!!! Remember that photography is really thousands of specialties under one name!!!
November 18th, 2011 at 5:22 am
Okay!!! But still!!!! Dreaming about such dramatic Crops is unheard off!!!!! 64 mp to 18mp is just ridiculous!!!! You seriously can’t anticipate where an eagle is going to land? You can’t anticipate where a lion is gonna pounce? It sounds like patience is an issue because professional wildlife photogs don’t go running through a jungle preying and spraying and later they crop. They’ll sit and wait for that definitive moment to capture. How did they capture shots of eagles 20, 30 years ago? Not by cropping!!!!! They used composition!!!! (the exclamation points are a play on your comment
)
November 18th, 2011 at 5:23 am
Before you question the need for skills in this type of photography when the camera is doing so much of the work, realize that knowing where the eagle feed, sitting for hours to get a two second burst of shots, maximizing the images in post production and cropping for best composition is a lot of art to put into these. I also shoot RAW so that I can adjust for mistakes the camera might had made when making the choices for me in the heat of the action.
November 18th, 2011 at 5:26 am
Regardless of what you say there is no excuse for cropping more than two thirds of an image to get what you want.
November 18th, 2011 at 5:30 am
Back in the good old days (and even these days) professional photographers would spend two or three months on a shoot to get a hand full of images. Check out Florian Schultz on the web. He shoots wildlife for National Geographic and two months is a normal shoot for him on location WITH a supporting crew. As an amateur I don’t have the budget or time for that. But I do have a collection of shots that I am proud of and I am still learning. I also have no shame about my techniques. It is very expensive equipment as my kit today is about $5000 and growing so why not take advantage of the potential this equipment offers???
November 18th, 2011 at 5:36 am
While you are correct in that cropping more than two thirds would make the resolution mighty small, the other aspect of wildlife shooting is that often 400mm lens is not enough. Have you priced longer lenses?? A Canon 500mm lists for $7,000 a pop and go way up as you go longer. Not everyone can afford those prices. I am currently saving for a 500mm but don’t expect to be able to ever afford anything longer.
November 18th, 2011 at 5:36 am
Ok Marco that’s great for you. 1. I don’t care how you shoot. If you get the shots you want by cropping great for you. I’m not gonna debate about I comment I made that wasn’t even directed towards you and btw I stand by my point, dramatic crops where you’re losing 2 thirds or even one half of your image is simply ridiculous. And 2 5000 dollars spent on equipment doesn’t mean anything if you’re doing the majority of the work on your computer. I’m entitled to my opinion so please respect it and keep taking photos however you wish to take them.
November 18th, 2011 at 5:43 am
Yeah I agree cropping isn’t to good of an idea, I like trying to get the composition right on location and cropping if I need to later
November 18th, 2011 at 6:31 am
Oh, how I agree with this post. Despite running out of space and having to obtain additional HD space I try to retain as many photographs as possible – I guess it’s rather like the card board shoe box full of black and white and early colour photographs tucked away in so many cupboards in so many homes. Those are the photographs we return to especially if they are of people no longer with us or places we will never be able to return to – the holiday of a lifetime. This was really brought home to me when a friend asked me if I still had the photographs of his young son taken just a few weeks previously – he then told me that his son had died in an accident – boy, was I glad I hadn’t deleted them as I intended to do – even the ‘crap’ one suddenly became precious. I guess that part of the reason for taking photographs – to preserve memories of people, places and events.
November 18th, 2011 at 8:08 am
I think its upto the photographer about the cropping issue.But that dosent mean u will take the pic with the mindset of cropping,withot composition no photo can be cropped to greatness! So from my pov cropping should be an after thought.Heres an image i took which is an good example of composition and cropping.its been cropped around 25% from original. http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/49971387@N03/6339647981/
November 18th, 2011 at 8:39 am
This is where I guess the type of photography you do, and pro vs hobbyist, makes a big difference. I can see a pro wanting to keep all shots in case the client came back and decided they wanted them. As a hobbyist who primarily photographs my children, I’ve had to learn to do the opposite– I try to be very picky about what shots I keep and delete the others. Otherwise it’s easy to end up drowning in photos that won’t get looked at because it’s too daunting to go back to each one. And while I’m sure my kids will appreciate having their childhood captured so well, I can’t see them wanting to sort through 10,000+ photos for each *year* of their lives (which is about how many pictures I have for each of the first few years of my firstborn’s life).
As for the debate above on cropping…just in my limited experience of things like going to the zoo with my 70-300mm, I’ve cropped photos well past 1/3 of the frame in order to take a faraway (even zoomed all the way in) shot into a nice, close-in photo. Why in the world would that be “ridiculous?”
November 18th, 2011 at 9:12 am
oh come on… one of the worst article this year! Shoot what you want without thinking! Crop everything later. Use every free minute of your life for bad images. Don’t delete them. Try to invest as much time as you can to fix them. Heeee, really great advice!
Here is my advice: Learn how take good photos! Take one! Delete nine!
November 18th, 2011 at 9:25 am
I can definitely relate to this post 100%. It seems like every time I get back from a shoot there’s a bunch of shots that I don’t even want to look at ever again, but I keep them, just out of the sheer feeling that maybe they’ll one day be worth something to me. Months later and sure enough I’ve found ways to edit them that I never would have thought of before.
I think part of the process is forgetting where you were, and what state of mind you where in, when you first framed the shot, and then finally take it on with a fresh set of eyes seeing the photo as a whole image and as parts of smaller images.
Great read thanks for sharing!
November 18th, 2011 at 9:35 am
I, too, take a lot of wildlife stuff and cannot afford a 2 month trek or even a 2 week trek- a bird in flight is often that one shot out of a continuous burst that is centered enough to crop to perfection and often I do a lot of hike around stuff where the wildlife just happens by and click click click and happy if one of 5 is good enough.
I also have stopped deleting right away- in fact I often don’t even look til the next day, and looking back I would have kept some of my “trash” shots- hindsight often being 20/20. I am apparently doing something right as I have sold some of my work and beyond the small $ amount I ask to replace printing cost I am just soooo plesed that others see value in my work.
November 18th, 2011 at 9:53 am
it is ridiculous because its one thing to zoom in using your 300mm lens but if you can’t get what you’re looking for at 300mm (judging on the zoom range I’m assuming you’re shooting with a cropped sensor camera as that zoom range is popular for your typical cheap super tells) which is probably 450mm on nikon or 480mm on canon you’re doing something wrong. and if you’re eliminating entire chunks such as thirds from your image your definitely doing something wrong. 18mp camera turns into a 12 mp and then a 6mp if you take off 2 thirds which from the sound of your comment you do so often. but again i don’t need to defend my point, it is my personal opinion that cropping a photo that much is just stupid and i would never tackle a wild life shoot with equipment i know cannot handle the job. just like you don’t take your prius to race in formula one, i would not take a cheap lens with a bad range to do a wildlife shoot. composition+framing > cropping
November 18th, 2011 at 10:00 am
I agree with what a lot of you say about not cropping and trying to compose on the spot, But cropping is a useful way of saving some otherwise lame pictures that you would normally discard. Like the article is trying to point out. Live with your pictures. You may be surprised in the future. I never delete pictures until I have no use for them.
November 18th, 2011 at 10:35 am
extremely beautiful photos..
November 18th, 2011 at 11:19 am
I do not delete straight out of the camera; I handle most of the deletions in camera raw when I am finessing exposure and contrast. I used to save every little thing I shot, but it made me feel like a hoarder. So, now I keep what pleases my eye and the rest go away. I still have thousands of shots on file, but at least none of it is junk.
And for the record – cropping is a matter of personal taste. More power to you if you like to crop, crop and crop some more. Sometimes it is a useful tool for quick centering, but I have seen people use it very artistically. To each his or her own…
November 18th, 2011 at 11:35 am
Good article and I agree on the points raised by the author. However, I would disagree on the cropping part. I try to shoot in frame without the need for cropping…..unless it’s absolutely necessary.
November 18th, 2011 at 11:49 am
Yes I agree we should keep all out photos. There have been times when looking at an otherwise pretty ordinary photo you come across something you did not see when taking it, like the man on the rocks. Of course cropping is valid then. I must admit (sorry to upset the perfectionists) getting three separate images (by cropping) from the one photo, each with a different composition. Would love 64 mp! I’ll now go and stand in the corner for the rest of the day.
November 18th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Look closer at he wood picture. The piece of wood on the right with green on the wood, looks like a face, a nancient mask. Crop that area.
November 18th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
I’m having trouble understanding why anything matters other than the photographer him/herself being happy with the shots s/he took (or has *gasp* cropped down). Again, if you’re selling images that might be different. But for a hobbyist, why would anything matter other than liking *your own* photo?
November 18th, 2011 at 5:34 pm
I realise that some will use this as an excuse to simple take a photo and reckon they will crop later the bit that looks OK, and that is really just a recipe for tears.
Know what you are photography and understand why you may have to crop, even if your intention from the outset is to crop you will should still have envisioned the photos outcome when you captured the image, perhaps you need to crop to add a little zoom or perhaps simple for emphasis, just be careful of shooting and hoping a crop later will fix the problem.
i generally Shoot knowing I will crop later, and usually I do this to give myself a little creative breathing space, just in case I wish to change the focus of my subject or something similar. That said I will admit that a quick snip has saved a terrible image and left me with something quite interesting.
Now with almost all my images cropped, even if slightly.
One thing I did for a while was crop all my images for 8×10, a number of little reasons, although recently I am leaving images as they, however there is still minor cropping happening as I go.
These images were pretty much all cropped for emphasis.
http://dsdphotography.co.za/bridal-wedding-photoshoot-%e2%80%93-palazzo-hotel-%e2%80%93-monte-casino-%e2%80%93-johannesburg-part-i/
November 18th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
I shoot a lot of concerts, high ISO, often no flash allowed, so my delete key is often my attachment to sanity after a long night. Lets face it, at 3200, some shots are going to be @#%#$ whether I keep them for an hour or week, and no amount of Noise Ninja is going to save them all. I still keep about 1/2 of an event I shoot and archive, perhaps sending in 10% of that.
November 18th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
I know if I don’t like something it hits me immediately. As they say photography is art and to me that means that if even some thing tiny doesn’t grab you almost immediately, then to me it doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean it won’t work for others but something about a shot has to hit me immediately, no amount of messing about will revive something that doesn’t have the “IT” factor.
I have saved up shots to the point where my storage had 1450GB of photos, I got up one day and immediately dropped everything I had never looked at, that was over 6 months old, binned it. Next I binned anything I disliked, I was down to 45GB in matter of 2 hours.
I don’t take many shots but I don’t want a load of old dross hanging about, annoying me. I keep the keepers and use those as my guide forward and hardly ever look back!
November 19th, 2011 at 2:18 am
@Timber
You can’t say people are rubbish photographers if they crop and then say you don’t need to defend your point. If I call you braindead (which I’m not), wouldn’t you expect me to at least give some measure of explanation?
And yes, I often crop my images down bigtime. Sometimes you just don’t notice certain things while shooting, are you really going to say “oh well, pity I didn’t see it then” when you can still get the composition you want by cropping? Sure you are reducing your amount of pixels, but honestly, who gives a damn? Art isn’t about pixels.
November 19th, 2011 at 10:25 am
@Danferno i don’t need to explain myself to anyone and i was joking around when i said Tim isn’t good at composing but people like you and Marco take people’s comments as direct attacks on your style of photography. I reiterate, i don’t care how you shoot, i don’t care how he shoots, i don’t care how anyone shoots. if you get the pictures you want doing what you do than thats just dandy for you. An artist only needs to please him/herself and inadvertently i did defend my point. It reduces picture quality and encourages laziness and there isn’t anything you can say that would change my mind about cropping. Oh and certain things you don’t notice? you have to be near blind to come home and say “Damn the best possible shot i took is only good if i chop off a half or two thirds or 90% of the entire image!!” Some people need to stop getting so butthurt about my opinions on cropping… this is art do it how you like but don’t expect others to say what you want to hear about the way you do it.
November 20th, 2011 at 7:44 am
timberswiss3 MISSED my main comment. Different types of photography have different needs. A portrait photographer or a fashion photographer would never crop and will always compose in camera. However ACTION wildlife shots are best taken with the center focus point as it is most accurate and they are taken in bursts to get the before and after shots as well as the perfect moment as predicting that is impossible in most cases. You know the eagle is going to grab a fish, but not exactly when. It is easy to get an eagle on a perch but those shots are a dime a dozen because the ARE easy. Because I am using the center focus point, all of my shots will have the animal centered in the frame as shot, so I crop for composition and usually remove less than one third of the image to get the composition that I want.
An eagle that makes a “stoop” dive is traveling at nearly seventy miles an hour and just getting the focus point to stay on him is a hard thing to do, then he levels off about two feet above the water at that speed and readies his talons for a strike, but you are still not sure where he will “grab” at. You just stay on him and keep shooting until he grabs and rises with his prize.
My point is that this type of photography has nothing similar to shooting landscapes or fashion or hundreds of other types of photography. What applies to one does not always apply to all. So these CATEGORICAL, set in stone RULES that so many seem to have are wrong unless you specify the type of photography they apply to.
It was asked in previous post about how did they do this thirty years ago, I must say that too many back then used baiting and other unethical means to get a set up shot. The National Wildlife Service states that “A fed eagle is a dead eagle.” and they also mean using bait to get a photo. Bait is not an option today and I will use the camera to overcome the difficulty if the camera maker puts it in there as it gets these hard to get shots if you are persistent.
November 20th, 2011 at 7:51 am
Sorry, I meant to say National Park Service in the previous post.
November 20th, 2011 at 8:43 am
w.e im not gonna argue with you any longer. do what you like.
November 20th, 2011 at 9:40 am
I will always do what I like, but I will never stop being amazed at the self-appointed “experts” that cannot admit that the rules and equipment needs of wedding photography don’t apply to wildlife photography!!!! You never once “qualified” yourself as to what type or types of photography you practice nor what equipment you have personal experience with.
November 20th, 2011 at 10:31 am
dude seriously what is wrong with you, you take every comment I’ve made as a direct attack to your style of photography. I don’t need to tell you anything about myself or my equipment and i will not because I’m not some braggart like you that yells at people for having opinions all whilst telling me that you have $5000 worth of gear and telling every little detail about your photo shoots. you seem infatuated with me and my style of photography by the way you’re badgering me for details. And i am no self appointed expert, please read my comments and compare them to yours. You’re over here trying to school me on something that quite frankly i have absolutely no interest in. I do not care for wildlife photography, nor do i care about details of your photoshoots with eagles. My points still stand, cropping reduces image quality and encourages laziness there is always a lens that does the job of a crop while retaining full image quality. you seem to have problems with the way people do things and in photography thats not good because not everyone will shoot like you and opinions will be made about tactics like cropping. its not personal i just don’t like to do it, now leave me alone.
November 20th, 2011 at 11:04 am
What is wrong with me is your very first post:
“Why would you dream of cropping? What’s the point of shooting and cropping. Sounds like Tim isnt very good at composition…”
Which is very categorical and very insulting to anyone that disagrees with you. I’m out of here!
November 20th, 2011 at 11:16 am
Thank god
November 20th, 2011 at 7:16 pm
I’m not a professional photographer, just an amateur wandering around on weekends with my digital point and shoot…I haven’t cropped anything since my photoshop type program somehow refused to work, but I think most of my photos are pretty good.
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Whoa … horses. I am a first time poster, and why I post is the words “ridiculous” and “stupid”. The last things we have a right to say to each other as “picture takers” (my words) are put-downs such as these.
I am a very amateur photographer (whoops, “picture taker”). I have a handful of photos I got real lucky on and they sell. I use cheap equipment … Canon XSi, kit lens EFS 18-55. But I have a nice Lowepro Bag!!
I keep everything, except the real obvious duds (like total black or total white).
I have, and we all have, seen a snapshot that was outstanding. I have, and we have all have, seen a professional photo that was just bad.
It’s a matter of perspective. But I ramble …
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Whoops, I forgot to mention I try at wildlife photography with my limited budget and, yes, i do crop.
I look at the size of the final product and sometimes it doesn’t work. Do I want a thumbnail on the computer or a poster on the bus? One-thirds or two-thirds really doesn’t matter if the result is pleasing to the eye.
Be that my eye or the eye-of-your-future-mother in law – use discretion.
Noting is stupid or ridiculous.
It is all art.
no/yes?
November 23rd, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Timberswiss3 : I will have to learn to relax, BUT, 20 or 30 years ago they got those shots by various and maybe nefarious means. I will guarantee this: If 20 years ago they got a perfect photo of an eagle’s talons closing on the prey (which would be the photographer) without using some form of cropping or other work of an artist …?
Point being, we as photographers manipulate, pose, …. shoot multipexible numbers of shots per second in action … all of us hoping to get the right what?
Photograph.
I call them pictures … LOL.
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:50 pm
W.e I told Marco applies to you as well. The first few comments. Not the last few
November 30th, 2011 at 2:27 am
wise words
totally agree, the images that sping out immediately from a shoot I often discard for those that werent so immediate and would have made the cutting room floor etc if I wasnt such a hoarder
p.s I thought it was cybermen who said delete not daleks ?!
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