Letting go (of past work)

[Takkun]

Oof.
I just got back from my mother's place, where I just spent 8 hours going through what appeared to be every photo I took between 1999 and 2010 or so. Filled several garbage bags with prints, negatives, slides, and various detritus (my mother's seemingly kept everything I've ever touched, but that's a different story).

Lots of 3x5 and 4x6 proofs. Packets from Walgreens, Ritz, and later the various camera dealers I worked at—oh, how I miss $2 processing with my discount. Film stocks long since discontinued: Plus-X, Neopan 100, E100G and a lot more. Countless more that I'd developed by hand and only printed one or two images before moving on, never looking at the rest of the roll.

It was a very strange and emotionally heavy process. I may not have the best memory in the world, but I can look at a roll and vividly remember the day I shot it (the only roll that threw me for a loop was one I remember developing for my ex!). The whole process was like watching a film of all my memories, good and bad.

Of course, I kept a handful of sentimental prints, some individual strips to scan when I get the chance, and my best 'keeper' work. There were a lot of adolescent attempts to be 'arty' or failed shots to document some place at a specific moment in time. Seemed a waste to toss them, but I know of a place that collects materials for art/craft/DIY projects and hope someone with more creativity might make use of them.

The entire process was a tremendous mental, not to mention physical, unburdening. The next project is going through the 3500+ iPhone photos from the following 10 years.

I'd like to hear from others about how they deal with decades of old work, especially what hasn't seen the light of day. I studied photography in undergrad and something that was never discussed in depth was how to organize one's work. My professors were of two camps: one was the 'save absolutely everything and invest in a lot of hard drives,' while the other was 'never print more than two photos per roll and toss the rest'.

 

[Dogman]

These days I shoot 100% digital and I delete the hell out of duplicates and bad shots. In bygone days I tossed out duplicate slides and bad shots but I filed away all my negatives. I also have boxes of prints dating back to the early 1970's that really should be culled ruthlessly.

I'm inconsistent, obviously.

 

[sreed2006]

I'd like to hear from others about how they deal with decades of old work....

I look at the stacks of negatives, slides, disk drives, CDs, DVDs, and prints once in awhile, and think that I really do need to get it all organized. There's been some progress, but sporadic, and nowhere nearly enough. I estimate that if I sat down, unemotionally, and just tackled organizing photographs, all day, every day, I could be done within a year (that includes scanning and printing the keepers, while simultaneously cataloging or indexing what I keep).

The toughest part is the "unemotionally" part. Seeing some of the old pictures brings to mind unhappy times, and that's when I give up and go do something else. One of these days, though, I will get it done.

 

[PRJ]

I keep negatives pretty much no matter what. Prints I cull every now and then. Last time I did it was in 2012 when I filled one of those large SoCal recycling cans nearly full. I still have upwards of five thousand prints in boxes.

It pays to stay organized. I use Lightroom to catalog film. Every neg I ever shot has been scanned. All the good prints I have were scanned too. All of it goes into Lightroom. The negs are numbered by year and running roll number. When i make new scans they go into a folder that holds all new scans, then periodically I move the images into the folder heirarchy which is done by geographical location or subject matter. It is easy to find an image this way. It never takes me longer than a minute to find an image. If I want to make a pirnt of something I just have to find the image # then go pick out the neg out of a binder. I also use collections in Lightroom quite extensively and everything gets metadata as well. I am kind of stuck with Lightroom to be honest.

For Digital images I've switched over to Capture One. Pretty much works the same as Lightroom. I've found it to be much better than Lightroom for image quality though which is why I made the switch. When I import the digital images, I rename them with the date they were shot before the file name. That keeps everything organized chronologically.

Now that I've been doing all this for a long time, I think it is a big mistake to throw out negatives. Back in the day our parents use to keep the prints and throw out the negs. I have a ton of photos from when i was a kid and they are all faded and look like pookah. If I had the neg, I could make another print. Don't chuck the negs.

I hope that helps someone.

 

[Archiver]

A few months ago, my Aunt showed me a box of old photos taken of our family from over the years, as well as a photo album kept by her mother in law. In it were photos I'd never seen, including a handful of Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides. It made me wonder where all the other slides from those rolls were!

I'm frankly surprised that you would throw out so much of your photographic history. To each their own; it must have been a very arduous and yet ultimately positive process for you.

In my case, all of my albums are dated and labeled. I know pretty much where, when and with what camera and lens each photo was taken, and what film was used. All of my digital images are organized by year, and then broken down by place, person or activity, all in chronological order. I'm happy to keep buying hew harddrives and migrating the existing files across; I've been doing this for years, having moved from Imation Super Discs to burnable CD's, then DVD's, and now harddrives.

 

[David Hughes]

Years ago my mother was in her 80's and decided to go through all the family photo's and write on the back who they were of and when they were taken. I'm very glad she did.

So I now have family pictures dating back to the turn of and probably before the last century; some are the early circular Kodak photo's and there are a few Tintypes.

Looking carefully at the oldest professional photo's I was amazed how good some taken in 1908 were...

Regards, David


PS I save all mine from the digitals and film on a HD in a folder for each camera. Plus a folder called - at the moment - "2019" after a year or so I thin out the 2019 folder and then further thin the ones 9 or 10 years old but you need to look at all of them to be effective. It's best done now and then.

 

[olifaunt]

I'm frankly surprised that you would throw out so much of your photographic history. To each their own; it must have been a very arduous and yet ultimately positive process for you.

I just keep everything. I don't get throwing away photos. (My mom does it with my dad's photos she knows I might want and it drives me insane; it's OCD-like behavior on her part.) Also, it sometimes takes years to recognize diamonds you couldn't "see" at the time.

 

[p.giannakis]

Went through a similar phase 10 years ago. All my work which consisted of heavily manipulated digital images, went to the bin and deleted them from any websites I had them on. Just woke up one day and they felt like unimportant. I realized that I enjoyed more recording life in the streets rather than spending time on the computer making digital pictures of landscapes looking like paintings.
No regret whatsoever, never looked back. I think I outgrew that phase, I am more satisfied with what I do now.

 

[Michael Markey]

I did a ruthless cull of my negs a couple of years ago .

It`s surprising how much you take does not work and has no emotional value either.

 

[presspass]

I have the same dilemma. I've been going through boxes of prints, almost all black and white, and binders full of negatives dating back to the mid 70s. Some that I did for work, mostly high school sports, get tossed without a second look. The decision is tougher for others. So far, I haven't made as much headway as I would like. But I know, having reached the age of 74, that I have to do this because no one else will.

 

[charjohncarter]

Hard question and no easy answer. I have the same stuff only at my house and I've been slowly going through it: hoping for a masterpiece.

When my mother was growing up she lived on an island in Alaska with a very small town. Her high school class was under 20 people. I guess for a graduation they went on an over night trip some place on the island. When she died I found a photo from that trip her and her female classmates all naked posing with fir boughs somewhat covering them. I didn't keep that photo, now years later I wish I had (photo from 1935).

 

[Takkun]

I'm frankly surprised that you would throw out so much of your photographic history. To each their own; it must have been a very arduous and yet ultimately positive process for you.

It was, to a degree. Mostly the lab prints were tossed, and a good handful of whole rolls. Really relieved my mental clutter in a way. It could have taken a lot less time without the emotional burden.

To be fair, most of these were not keepers in any way, just snapshots that triggered a lot of obscure, albeit mundane, memories. To use one example, as I was describing the process to someone, one roll had a number of blurry photos of a tree. I remember the exact moment: a gray November day, walking along the Burke-Gilman Trail in 2006. I met with a friend at Pita Pit for lunch. A neutral memory I have no particular attachment to. To anyone else, it's just...a blurry photo of a tree. Nothing visually interesting, or family events, or that even might be of historical interest to future generations.

Back then, I photographed everything. Kept notes on lenses, film, etc, as I experimented. I guess that's how we learn. And like presspass, literally hundreds of rolls shot for photography classes, school newspaper/yearbooks, etc. that didn't need to be hung on to. (Still have my old yearbooks and proud that a lot of work was mine! Hung onto one photo of our newsroom from the day upgraded our beige G3s for G5s!)

The keeper negs, and there were still many, are now sitting waiting to be scanned when I've got the time, which, well, I do now. By around 2008 or so I was getting things scanned low-res, so I at least know what was on each roll. Sadly some of the drugstore-processed rolls of family outings are now badly degraded. But those pseudo-artsy 8th-grade art class rolls developed at home? Clear as day!

Olifaunt: Very true on hindsight. There were definitely gems in there I hadn't really seen the value in at the time. These days I cull the obvious: blurry, poorly exposed, etc shots, and those that would be far more work printing/post-processing than they're worth. The rest I do keep and revisit every so often. The professor who once advised me to only choose one or two keepers per roll was very much against batch scanning, but I do appreciate having everything digitized. Storage these days is cheaper than time spent searching through contact sheets.

My mother was inspired by this to sort through her own father's work, which she's dutifully carried around the country for the last nearly 50 years. He was a prolific and accomplished photographer, and some of the prints are truly masterful. Unfortunately, all the negs were tossed, and much of the 6x6 Kodachromes are damaged or faded. That project will be a much bigger undertaking. Her parents passed when she was a teenager and sadly most of the family albums were destroyed in a flood, so perhaps thats where our shared over-sentimentality comes from.

Onto the next decade, however. PRJ—How are you liking Capture One? I was an early adopter of Aperture and worrying about the impending demise with the move to 64 bit. I'm hoping I can get everything sorted and cleaned up before then. And instill equally good archival hygiene in my brother, who just took up photography.

 

[olifaunt]

To be fair, most of these were not keepers in any way, just snapshots that triggered a lot of obscure, albeit mundane, memories. To use one example, as I was describing the process to someone, one roll had a number of blurry photos of a tree. I remember the exact moment: a gray November day, walking along the Burke-Gilman Trail in 2006. I met with a friend at Pita Pit for lunch. A neutral memory I have no particular attachment to.

This is why I keep everything. Even if it has no artistic value, it jogs my memory. There is so much of my life that is lost in the mists of time and this way some of it comes back. Just the other day, some simple pictures of days I spent with an ex brought back fond memories I wouldn't otherwise have had access to. They weren't even anything personal, just mostly snaps from the car window, often blurry, but seeing them brought back the feeling of that day, smells of leaves and food, wind and temperature, atmosphere of a drive.

Of course the pictures I consider art are important to me. Everything is an attempt at art, but the ones that succeed are a very small percentage, so I am finding different ways of consuming my own pictures; mostly what my photos are about to me is simply recalling the subjectivity of inhabiting myself on a given day, often with the help of music and pot (which helps make even ordinary pictures into very meaningful memories). If I threw away those images, I would never recall those days again. Well, I would in a general sense, but not in that amount of specificity.

 

[LCSmith]

I keep all family pictures.

I delete or throw away all of my other work after I fully analyze it and understand what was wrong with it. This keeps me from pretending a picture was good when it really was not, and helps me to improve. If I post anything online, it is only to solicit criticism. I delete it shortly after. This keeps me from pretending that my work is actually good enough to be called art. If it is ever good enough, I think I will know; but I am far from that point, and there is no use pretending I am not.

 

[olifaunt]

I keep all family pictures.

I delete or throw away all of my other work after I fully analyze it and understand what was wrong with it. This keeps me from pretending a picture was good when it really was not, and helps me to improve. If I post anything online, it is only to solicit criticism. I delete it shortly after. This keeps me from pretending that my work is actually good enough to be called art. If it is ever good enough, I think I will know; but I am far from that point, and there is no use pretending I am not.

It is very difficult to judge one's own stuff, so I also crowdsource my education. What has made me improve a lot has been submitting my work to moderated galleries whose curators I have a lot of respect for (e.g., on Flickr) where approval into the group pool means that your photo has some merit in the eyes of someone who knows something, and building a following of photographers whose work I really respect and whose faves (or lack of faves) mean something. Most of my photos posted fail and I cull them, but the ones that have survived have been growing into a portfolio of stuff I am finally quite proud of.

I still don't know what's wrong with some pictures and that will probably remain the case, but I have learned quite a bit at least.

 

[KoNickon]

I pitched a large amount of my stuff earlier this year, and know that this was only an initial cut -- I may end up pitching the majority of what's left at some point, when we downsize. Mostly these were prints taken of stuff that was only of interest to me (new to me camera or lens, for instance) and certainly nothing that was unique. It was appalling to me to realize how much money all this represented! And yes, I can remember just about every frame -- what I was thinking when taking the picture. But that doesn't change the fact that a lot of it just wasn't worth keeping.

 

[PRJ]

.....

Onto the next decade, however. PRJ—How are you liking Capture One? I was an early adopter of Aperture and worrying about the impending demise with the move to 64 bit. I'm hoping I can get everything sorted and cleaned up before then. And instill equally good archival hygiene in my brother, who just took up photography.

It produces better color than Lightroom but Lightroom is more seamless in organization. Not hugely though. I was used to Lightroom, so I noticed the differences. If you don't have any habits, Capture One should work perfectly.

I should note also that I use Capture One for digtal and Lightroom for film. I don't recall ever trying to use CO for film. The back and forth to Photoshop isn't as seamless as Lightroom either.

Just don't be like some people I know who are great photographers but can't find an image when they need to...

I used to be that way. Back about 15 years ago finding a negative meant looking through boxes of negatives. Sometimes it would take me an hour to find a neg and that is a serious amount of time wasted. These days I can find a neg in a few seconds in Lightroom, then go to my binders and take it right out.

On the downside, getting organized is a royal PITA, I ain't gonna lie. In around 2005 I organized everything by year which wasn't too hard. Maybe took a day. In around 2007 I started scanning everything I shot to keep it cataloged. In 2012 I went back and scanned everything before that. It took a solid month of doing nothing else except scanning, but it was probably 25000 negs I'd guess. I found a lot of great shots though. Now that it is all done, I can say it was the best thing I ever did.

I took a look at your blog Ian and you make some exceptional photographs. You should get your ducks in a row...

 

[LCSmith]

No one will care about the pictures we make when we die. Which means no one really cares about the pictures we make now.

 

[sreed2006]

No one will care about the pictures we make when we die. Which means no one really cares about the pictures we make now.

I have no idea why you would say that. We have a family photo album with pictures from the early 1900s through the 1950s that is highly valued amongst the whole family. Lots of us care a great deal for those pictures. To give one example: one picture is of my mother as a teenager riding two horses at the same time, standing with a foot on each saddle. I would never have known she was such a daredevil otherwise. (You know - "Pictures or it didn't happen.")

 

[David Hughes]

Letting go of old cameras is just as hard...


Regards, David