Digital, the future, and the delete button.

J

jfretless

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All,
I'm currently watching the BBC series, "The Genius of Photography."

Something struck me as I watched it last night. A lot of the great images shown in the series show blurred hands, slight OOF, etc...

In the digital age, it's apparent to me that the general populous is after the sharpest, clearest images. I would bet that a lot of these "photographers" are quick to hit the delete button if the image on the LCD is anything less than "perfect."

With film negatives, you pretty much keep all the exposures... be it because of the way we store the negatives in strips of four or five, or any other reason.

So, do you think that today's "photographers" are doing themselves a disservice by deleting any images that doesn't meet their requirements at the moment?

We all know as time goes on we look at the images we've taken in the past with a different eye.

In my case, being a "pack rat" and a tech geek, it's easy for me to keep "every" exposure I have taken with film and digital. Disk space is cheap and why delete something forever when it doesn't cost you anything to keep it.

Thoughts?

Thanks.
John
 
I agree that (analog) photos made in time past

I agree that (analog) photos made in time past

were different from the way some photos made today via digital sensors. Some of the reason for a (supposed) preference for "sharp"-ness may be due to the digicam look. Deep DOF has trained young photogs to see "sharp" as the way to go. When the young photog turns to analog, the talk is often about the sharpness of the photo or the sharpness of the lens, and so on. I'm 63 years old and LOTS of my old analog stuff is sharp... and LOTS of my old analog stuff is not so sharp. My use of modern digital cameras (Canon and Pentax) has been guided by my use of film/analog equipment and the way film looks compared to digital. At first, I was beyond thrilled with the sharpness and detail in the frame. And, I'm still thrilled with detail, if the photo is of a bird or flower or so on. But, I'm also thrilled with some of the "effects" of soft focus or blurred motion or.... well, you probably get the point.
And, given my age... my eyes aren't what they used to be 😉
 
Yes I think that digital photographers do themselves a great disservice when editing in the field. It changes the whole process of shooting to evaluate what has been captured on the spot. It is important (in my opinion) to focus on the subject matter, and not so much on what you're getting at the time of the shoot. I see it all the time from people working with digital cameras - shoot, look at the back of the camera, shoot - repeat. I will admit it is nice to check every once in a while to make sure you're getting something, but an LCD's resolution and size isn't adequate enough to evaluate the quality or content of what you have anyway.

Plus, we learn from our mistakes - learning takes a lot longer when you delete all your mistakes, or images you perceive to be mistakes. What if you were to make a "mistake" and delete what might later because the jumping off point for an entire way of thinking or shooting? Digital shooters should treat their memory cards like film - download all the images, archive them, label them and do your editing through selection, instead of physically removing images.
 
It is very true what you say and very sad. I work with DSLR's every day and although I get tack sharp images I always feel they are a bit clinical, almost perfect in sharpness. I am not a digital verses film type guy, I use both allot, but my favorites are my slightly out of focus shots that I take with my film bodies. Why is that? For me, I shoot film not for what it can do, but for what it can't do. The out of focus shots remind me that it was me behind the lens i guess. Does that make sense?
 
It may be because I've used film for 30 years (and still do), but I keep all my RAW images. I'm a great believer in taking the opportuity to look at the 'failures' with a fresh eye weeks, months or years later. Deleting from the camera on the day of the shoot is a big mistake I think.
 
no they don't do a disservice to themselves by deleting all those. Actually i think they should delete much more than the ones not sharp enough😉

Honestly...People make too many damn photos. The result is: either they bore to death the relatives,friends, by showing x-thousand holiday snaps, or they put the shots on a dvd and never ever look at them again (until the dvd stops working, but sorry, this ain't a "which is more archival" thread!)
 
Juan-Carlos,

Man you have some really strong work there - absolutely beautiful! The Juarez stuff is great - you have brought forth the essence of life in these images - the tactile, the ragged, the imbalanced - those are qualities best recorded on film and that reflect the randomness of our world, and the style supports the subject matter. The apparent softness of the images whether it is from your lens, your camera or your enlarger (or even if these were scanned negs) really works with the subject, and has a great quality.

Some of your other work with "better" lenses is fantastic also - you just have a great eye and clearly a sensitivity to your subject. Nice 🙂
 
I never edit in the field, only on the computer when I can
fully evaluate. One thing that's no different from film
to digital is that bad photos will not get better.
Delete, delete, delete.
 
Funny, I made this exact same comment about a photograph of my friend which I certainly would have nuked had the photo been taken on my XT vs. my K1000. Mind you, people take crap loads more photos with a digital camera, and learning to erase your bad photos is a habit everyone should develop.
 
I have to disagree with the last couple posts and reitterate what Leicasniper said: What does it cost you to keep those "bad" photos? Some disk space? There must have been some inital reason for taking the "bad" picture in the first place - what was it? Why is the picture bad? These are questions you don't have to face if you just delete, delete, delete.
 
I guess it also comes to how many shots you take during an outing and the time you have for post-processing.
Yet I agree that too many people keep bad photos or several shots of the same scene. It can be pretty boring for the ones looking at these "great pictures" of the County Fair ...
 
Awesome replies. Thanks!

With the delete button, used in the field, the number of "brilliant accidents" is greatly reduced.

John
 
"It can be pretty boring for the ones looking at these "great pictures" of the County Fair ..."

Well you don't have to show all your images to everyone - that indeed would be pretty boring! I'm talking about the raw meat of a shoot though - the good bad and ugly. I would never subject anyone to view every frame of a certain shoot - actually, I don't let anyone see my contacts as a rule. The finished photo is all there is in my opinion, but the photos that didn't make it for one reason or another can inform you at a later date. And again, if I found I had a large percentage of my images that were worthy of being trashed from a particular project, I woudl start to question why or how I was shooting in the first place. I've dropped many a project right in the middle because I looked at 10 or 20 or 30 contact sheets and decided the project sucked, it wasn't any good, or whatever and quit it to start down a new path. Course, I'm never working for anyone so that is a nice luxury to have.
 
@bmattock I have Lightroom cross referencing all my digital photos. I know how to use a computer, thank you. And I agree it's a big step up from a negative binder. That said, I still erase stuff judiciously. Lightroom helps with narrowing my search for a photograph down, but if I kept every shot I took it would still be overwhelming. Never mind that entering the useful metadata about a photo (people, place, etc) is a tedious process.
 
I think another thing to keep in mind is that scarcity is sometimes what makes a photograph interesting. That one print you find that is full of emotion because it's your only photograph of something that matters. I think in the future these sorts of photos aren't going to exist, because everyone will have 1500 photographs of their baby's first month, 50,000 of their wife, etc, etc. I don't think my children will ever experience the same sort of joy I get from stumbling on an envelope with old photographs. Oh look, Dad's old hard drive. Here are 1800 photographs Spring 2008. If you don't want to look at your sea of photographs, who will?
 
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