Good advice, seems like a theme that once in a while pops up, sometimes after some Leica or Fuji cameras were launched. My LCD is closed most of the times, moments are gone forever, the memory card stays there.
I confess that I delete a lot of raws, I have stats about that, but I can explain why in a bigger text.
Having had the privilege of seeing a live presentation from Bill and a bit of the stories of his Basque trip, I can definitely say he’s one of the greats.
Is it the Leica M11-D that doesn't have an LCD screen? I think a screen is pretty useful so I wouldn't be tempted by that – but I can understand the appeal. It's the modern habit of looking at the screen after every frame which interrupts the flow.
Please don't delete your raw files, Ruben. It feels to me like burning negatives and I've heard too many stories from colleagues regretting the loss of a negative or a digital file that once seemed redundant but came to be important later.
Indeed, I remember Bill Allard saying how he's always regretted binning the first of the two negatives he had of the "Girls Running", even though it was blurry. Nearly 60 years later, it would have become a valuable part of the story of the frame that he kept.
And I bet Nick Ut wishes AP had kept all the negatives from the day he made his famous "Napalm Girl" picture. They weren't considered worth keeping on the day but imagine if one of those scrapped frames included the stringer who's now claiming to have taken the picture. We can never predict what might be useful in the future.
So I've become an absolutist about keeping original negatives/files. Not that I expect to ever look at them again, they're insurance, just in case.
You have a good argument with Nick Ut. My reasoning is related to the time spent processing and keywording images, removal of “duplicates” and keeping the technically ok images. Plus, disk space, cloud space. Even today’s camera’s can fail sometimes, as does the person using them.
You probably know even better than me that some images sold were never going to be featured in a personal website, even less in a portfolio. Rest assured that I keep similar images if they are ok images. But, I also do wildlife photography, the keepers’ rate is much less than with other genres I photograph, but that’s natural, higher bursts, too many fails.
Ah, and I also keep those images that may be crap but resonate with personal memories of a place or event. They don’t need to see the light.
I think our workflows are much the same – but I might have an extra step. I make two copies of raw files when importing.
One copy is archived and rarely visited. I don't edit or delete these 'originals'.
The second set of 'working files' get the same approach as you described. I guess about 50% are deleted because they're virtual duplicates, out of focus, or the result of tripping over the cat.
What's left in the second set get ratings, labels and basic keywords. A small percentage of these are eventually edited, captioned, and have extra keywords.
So I reckon we're pretty much in sync with our approach, the only difference is that I store duplicate copies of my raw files. I use a separate drive and Lightroom's 'Copy' option to make duplicates when importing (https://cln.sh/WfqkJH7F).
I've not done a lot of wildlife photography but I can imagine that you would not want to be keeping dozens of virtually identical images in your working files. That seems like a genre where you might get two or three usable frames out of 20 or 30 – if you're lucky!
Thanks for sharing the insight into your workflow. As my granny would say, there are many ways to skin a cat. 🐱
Good advice, seems like a theme that once in a while pops up, sometimes after some Leica or Fuji cameras were launched. My LCD is closed most of the times, moments are gone forever, the memory card stays there.
I confess that I delete a lot of raws, I have stats about that, but I can explain why in a bigger text.
Having had the privilege of seeing a live presentation from Bill and a bit of the stories of his Basque trip, I can definitely say he’s one of the greats.
Is it the Leica M11-D that doesn't have an LCD screen? I think a screen is pretty useful so I wouldn't be tempted by that – but I can understand the appeal. It's the modern habit of looking at the screen after every frame which interrupts the flow.
Please don't delete your raw files, Ruben. It feels to me like burning negatives and I've heard too many stories from colleagues regretting the loss of a negative or a digital file that once seemed redundant but came to be important later.
Indeed, I remember Bill Allard saying how he's always regretted binning the first of the two negatives he had of the "Girls Running", even though it was blurry. Nearly 60 years later, it would have become a valuable part of the story of the frame that he kept.
And I bet Nick Ut wishes AP had kept all the negatives from the day he made his famous "Napalm Girl" picture. They weren't considered worth keeping on the day but imagine if one of those scrapped frames included the stringer who's now claiming to have taken the picture. We can never predict what might be useful in the future.
So I've become an absolutist about keeping original negatives/files. Not that I expect to ever look at them again, they're insurance, just in case.
You have a good argument with Nick Ut. My reasoning is related to the time spent processing and keywording images, removal of “duplicates” and keeping the technically ok images. Plus, disk space, cloud space. Even today’s camera’s can fail sometimes, as does the person using them.
You probably know even better than me that some images sold were never going to be featured in a personal website, even less in a portfolio. Rest assured that I keep similar images if they are ok images. But, I also do wildlife photography, the keepers’ rate is much less than with other genres I photograph, but that’s natural, higher bursts, too many fails.
Ah, and I also keep those images that may be crap but resonate with personal memories of a place or event. They don’t need to see the light.
I think our workflows are much the same – but I might have an extra step. I make two copies of raw files when importing.
One copy is archived and rarely visited. I don't edit or delete these 'originals'.
The second set of 'working files' get the same approach as you described. I guess about 50% are deleted because they're virtual duplicates, out of focus, or the result of tripping over the cat.
What's left in the second set get ratings, labels and basic keywords. A small percentage of these are eventually edited, captioned, and have extra keywords.
So I reckon we're pretty much in sync with our approach, the only difference is that I store duplicate copies of my raw files. I use a separate drive and Lightroom's 'Copy' option to make duplicates when importing (https://cln.sh/WfqkJH7F).
I've not done a lot of wildlife photography but I can imagine that you would not want to be keeping dozens of virtually identical images in your working files. That seems like a genre where you might get two or three usable frames out of 20 or 30 – if you're lucky!
Thanks for sharing the insight into your workflow. As my granny would say, there are many ways to skin a cat. 🐱
Thank you too, I’ve cetainly learned some interesting steps.
Another great newsletter. Good tips for staying present in the field.
Lucky you having William Allard’s photo on your wall. Gorgeous. Viewed others online. So good. Thanks for featuring him.