Watch the 7-minute video above, or keep reading if you prefer the written word.
Here’s a question that keeps me up at night:
Why do photographers get so intimidated by editing down to their best images and the “now what?” that comes once we put the camera down? And are we missing really important creative opportunities because of this?
For years, I’ve been signing my letters to you with the words “for the love of the photograph,” because I do. And so you do you. Nothing else explains the time and money we spend on making them. No doubt about it, this is a labour of love.
But I wonder if we love the photographs we are going to make—the next ones—way more than the ones we’ve just made. We so often move on to the next thing too quickly. The next project. You know the one: the one for which you need that new lens. Or tripod. Or flash. I’m the same way, and there’s nothing wrong with creative momentum or new gear.
But I think if we loved the photographs we’ve just made as much as the ones we’re about to make, we’d make stronger images and have a richer photographic life.
So, here are three ideas, or three ways, that we can carry the love of the photograph and the making of photographs, a little further and in the process, learn more, make stronger photographs, and find more joy in all of it.
Spend More Time With Them
In my last video, I suggested you consider doing smaller edits when you’re working on a project. I like daily edits when I’m photographing, but whatever “smaller edits” mean to you and your work, I think you’ll benefit from doing it. I also think multiple edits are important, and though I suggest spending more time, this multiple-edit approach is actually more effective and, in the end, takes less time—and is more enjoyable and effective than one big marathon edit session (that you may never get around to).
When it comes to choosing my keepers, I never completely trust my first instincts. We choose our best work by looking through all kinds of different filters. There’s no telling what I might have been looking for when I did my first edits—was I looking for colour images or vertical images or images that tell a certain story?—so it’s always worth giving my images another look, and doing so at least three times over a few months rather than doing one gigantic, mind-numbing edit session to find the best of my work.
One of the best reasons for doing this, especially if you’re doing smaller edits as the work progresses, is that what a project looks like at the end and what it looked like at the very beginning are usually very different. So going back to do another edit, once you’ve seen where the project is leading can be very effective in finding new images that work with that project.
Our work grows and changes, as does how we look at that work. I know we get excited by the next thing, but one of the best ways to make new photographs when you can’t be out there with the camera is to revisit older work. Do another pass. See what comes to the top now that you’re seeing it with fresh eyes months or even years later.
I think not being in such a hurry with finding the best of our photographs, of revisiting them and giving them a second or third chance after we’ve shot them, is a stronger way of editing than the way it’s often done: one big marathon edit session after which we call it done and never give the un-selected images another glance. That’s the first way we can give our photographs a little more love, and the result is stronger final images.
Do More With Them
I used to tell anyone who would listen to “print yer damn work!” Maybe you don’t make the prints yourself, that’s OK; I don’t anymore, either. But I do have it printed by someone who is really good at printing, and getting my work in print makes me a better photographer.
There’s also such joy in holding the work and sharing it in tangible ways. When’s the last time you made a book, a slideshow or a collection of prints to pore over? When’s the last time you submitted them to a magazine or swapped out the prints on your wall? When is the last time you did something with them?
If you want to love your photographs more, consider making something with them. The benefits are huge, and they’re practical. When we output our work, we spend more time with it.
When that output is larger than what we might put on Instagram, or we have to spend money to make it happen, I think we’re more critical of that work. We see the flaws and that keeps us honest and growing in our craft.
I’ve found knowing what I will make with my photographs gives me an end game of sorts. It makes the edits easier when I know what I’m choosing my best images for.
Protect Them
If we love something, we protect it. One way to do that is with an archive of prints, but let’s talk about back-ups for a moment.
It seems like every other week I hear another story of a photographer who lost all their images because a hard drive crashed. I’ve heard stories of theft and fire or water damage as well, and I can’t for the life of me understand why photographers will spend so much money on gear and balk at buying whatever sized hard drives they need to create a simple backup of the work they’ve invested so much in.
If your computer crashed right now or your main hard drive failed, how easy would it be to get back up and running without missing a beat or losing an image?
In case it’s been a while, this is just a reminder to consider giving your backup plan a second look. And if you aren’t current with your backups, maybe to take a moment a do that, you know, for the love of your photographs.
I’d love to hear from you on this. What do you do with your photographs once the camera goes back in the bag? You can be part of the conversation in the comments below.
Did you miss the first in this series? You can still read it or watch that first video HERE.
For the Love of the Photograph,
David
Comments
So true about backups! I keep only one calendar year’s worth of images sync’d to the cloud. I’ve found that with a good internet connection, keeping the images and the Lightroom catalog on the cloud is quick, and it keeps all of it backed up effortlessly. All images from past years are copied to two hard drives that hang out in my desk drawer.
I’ve also discovered, as David says, that it’s fun to go back and look at older image collections and finding a little gold in them that I had missed the first time around. And each time I do that it takes me back to the day of the shoot and all the enjoyment and feelings that went along with it.
Thank you about what you said about backups. Now I don’t feel so bad about my 7 external drives and cloud backups.
Never feel bad about redundant backups. You’d feel much worse if you lost all your work!
Don’t really shoot with a plan in mind. I am one of those photographers who leaves stuff to languish on HDD’s and in the cloud. I upload my photos without post-processing or giving any thought to what I may or may not do with them. Once in a blue moon I might try to find one again and maybe crop it. Cloud backup works for me (I have multiple cloud services that I use) as I only save the JPEG’s. All my cameras use SD cards and because they are so cheap when they are full I flick the lock switch and file them away much like I do with negatives. It’s not an ideal system but it works. I might have to start thinking about doing something with the images I shoot going forward. I see the sense in shooting with intent. The trouble is I don’t have a specific genre I shoot. I just shoot what takes my fancy when I go for a walk with the camera. Am I beyond help?
No one is beyond help, Ian. If you love what you do and how you do it, carry on!
I would like to share two thoughts to Davids latest blog post.
I recently started printing my photographs again, small size, in the drugstore. Even this money-saving method makes a difference. To hold my work in my hands is beautiful. Not just bits and megabytes rather something real.
Making a regularly backup is a worthy hint. I have experienced a hard drive crash years ago. Fortunately, my images were on a different computer. The lost of the other data had been painful enough. There might be possibilities to recover data but it is expensive and only works for particular circumstances. Making the backup is boring, but … Now I have a fixed time in my calendar for that issue.
I love this, Sabine! Well, not the part about the lost data, but you’re right: putting this on the calendar is a big help. Mine is set for once a month or after any big edits / projects, and it gives me tremendous peace of mind.
I absolutely agree with you to do something with photographs. I often make books. I also agree to revisit photographs multiple times. When you grow as a photographer and you see things differently you also edit photographs differently and you might even see something in a photograph that you didn’t like at first, but with new editing skills and possibilities you want to revisit that photograph and make it into something that you do like. I sometimes even make new books of photographs that I already made a book of, because my choice of photographs is different. That doesn’t mean I don’t like the first book anymore. I still do, but there are photographs missing that deserve to be in a book too.
Art is a constant evolution, as are we. I’ve got images from many years ago that I still revisit and re-process as I grow in both my craft and my vision. Books too. Why not make different versions as time marches on? Thanks for chiming in, Betty-Lou!
Thanks David, I 100% agree with everything you said! It’s easy to be overwhelmed by thousands of images, I call my approach to editing “salami tactics”, one slice at a time. Sometimes that may be a review of a single day’s photos, or even broken down to individual locations, and a single pass is not sufficient. I can take several reviews of just one day before moving on. And I’ll process several images of a similar scene, trying differenct treatments and points of view, before settling on my final selection. I also agree it’s important to select images with a purpose in mind, I use Collections (thanks to your excellent Beyond the Shutter masterclass). Books, calendars, slideshows and postcards are all collated using Collections in LR. Colour or B&W? Panorama or square format? Landscape or portrait? The same set of images can produce endless options for different outputs and projects.
And of course with so much passion that I have poured into my catalogue, I have not one but two backups of every photo. I use expensive LaCie Raid external hard drives, but worth every penny and I can sleep at night knowing my images are secure.
The value of a good night’s sleep is not to be under-estimated! 😉
Another reason to revisit older images is that editing software continues to improve. There is often an opportunity to do a better edit than you could have done a few years ago. I just pulled my head out of revisiting shots from May and found several that I could do a better job on.
Regarding backups, I think it’s important to document your backup scheme, including how you would perform a recovery from your backups, and actually do a test recovery to verify that the procedure works. There’s an old saying that you don’t have a backup unless you know you can recover from it. When you have a HDD failure, you will be agitated. When the HDD you restore to also fails, you will be freaking. In that situation, you don’t want to also be trying to figure out how to restore from your backup.
Some good wisdom in there, Gord. Thank you. You’re absolutely right. You need a back-up plan and you need a plan to use your backups. 👏👏👏
A general question: Once you’ve decided which photos you want to keep, do you erase the other ones in the series or do you keep them just in case, even when you’re pretty sure you will never look at them again?
Great question, Linda. I will ALWAYS look at them again. I do several passes on my images, usually 3 times within a month of shooting them and a couple more after that, until, at 10 years, I will look at them once more. Only then will I delete un-chosen images. There’s just too many good reasons to give my images a second, third , or fifth chance. Technology changes, my craft evolves, my vision grows. I want the photographer I am becoming to have a chance to look at the images I’m making now.
I like the concept of the 10-year cut-off for keeping rejected photographs. If by then they are still uninteresting to you, they probably never will be seen as anything else. I’m stealing this idea! So far, I have never erased any pictures, even the obvious bad ones shot by mistake — sometimes the colours and textures are intriguing…
David, what a pleasure it was to watch this weeks lecture. Thank you. This lecture really hit home.
I enjoy listening to you rather than reading, I like going back and look at different files, and do any adjustments. It is such a pleasure to get your emails every Sunday and sit and mull over the contents.
thank youi
Thanks so much for that, Stan. Always a pleasure.
Hi David,
It is always such a pleasure to read your insightful comments and suggestions. I absolutely agree that printing your work is important but equally important is to find places to share these prints with others. I regularly go to RPS specialist group meetings where there is an opportunity to show and talk about the prints with other like minded folk. Most of those attending share there work digitally but I always like to share printed work.
Beyond this though as an expressionistic photographer who uses different techniques both in camera and post processing I like to share what I am doing more widely through exhibiting them in open exhibitions at a local exhibition space. I am very fortunate as a volunteer who helps steward , curate , organise and hang exhibitions there, that I have regular opportunities to hang my work. I guess you get back what you put in, as with many things in life.
I have also got to know a number of fellow creatives, artists of different types and take any opportunity to take part in collaborative projects exploring our wonderful local landscapes here in South Devon. This provides further opportunities to exhibit my prints more widely and even contribute images in books published as a culmination of these projects.
In short what I am saying is if one is proactive about seeking out artistic communities of people and connecting with them, then opportunities will present themselves to share your work more widely.
A few years ago I learned the hard way…. 4Tb HDD crashed, it cost 1000 USD to recover 80% of the contents…. It also taught me that HDDs come in different qualities (blue, red, black etc. – mine was blue, the cheapest type, i.e. HDDs wear out/have a life span).
I now have a dual NAS with two 18Tb high-quality HDDs where the main HDD is mirrored on the second HDD. On top of that Jottacloud (Norwegian) with unlimited storage space – costs about 150 USD per year, but limits upload speed above a certain amount of storage space used. To me this is not a problem as it’s my “insurance” backup. For daily editing etc. the images on the NAS are used.
I use PhotoMechanic for uploading images to my computer (NAS drives). The images are organized by year and date with a brief description per folder (inspired by Judy Hancock Holland, File Management in Lightroom). In Lightroom I upload images using the ADD function so as not to build Lr’s library too large. And should I quit Adobe/Lightroom some day (subscription increased just over 100% last January!) my images are in folders held by me and not by Adobe.
David:
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but it’s important. I’ve been around computers for decades, long enough to remember 8″ floppy drives, anyway. And yes, I’ve experienced hard drive crashes and the like. Here’s what I do:
1) Whatever raw converter/DAM system you have probably uses a catalogue system of some sort. It probably has an available auto-backup component. Yes, you should use it in case your catalogue becomes corrupt. Be aware of two things: First, this does Not back up your images. Second, get in the habit to deleting old catalogue backups. If you haven’t done this in a while they’re probably taking up gigabytes of valuable storage space.
As to hard drive backups, definitely a yes too. How often? How much can you afford to lose? The questions of one vs. two or three backups, where, offsite/cloud I leave to you as well. There are pros and cons.
On my computer I have a folder called Installed, and within that folder are the install files for every piece of software on my computer. Also in that folder is a file called Licenses, and within that file are the software licenses for every piece of software on my computer.
So, if my hard drive crashed today, after installing a new one I’d use a flash drive to boot the computer and do a System Restore to reinstall Windows. Then:
1) go to the website of the backup software I use and download/install the latest version. I don’t need the license yet, just a free trial.
2) restore the Installed folder to my computer. Use the install files/licenses to reinstall all of the software.
3) restore the data files to my computer.
This takes time, but it’s relatively painless. If I’m traveling I have a portable backup disk with me. It won’t have my older/archived images but I can restore those later.
Mike.
Hi David, always enjoy your content, really a refreshing change to see someone focus on technique rather than gear. This post coincides with me tackling both topics at home at the moment.. On the ‘what now’ my workflow is backup my cards to twin portable SSD’s every trip, then when I get home, copy onto a NAS, which backs up to the cloud. I shoot JPEG and RAW (for fast browsing) pick my favorites and either edit the RAW files or share the jpegs with family on occasions. I will cull all the duds and finally delete all the jpegs to save space (which is a pain as RAW are slow to browse.) and I feel I am done for whatever that trip was. I pondered deleting all the others, however what I have found though over time is if revisit them maybe few weeks or a few months later. I often do not like many of my original picks and occasionally wonder why I chose them at all ! (Worse still see all the glaring issues I missed) Although those that remain favorites tend to be the best of the best.
However this leads me nicely into what has now become a real problem, as a software engineer I always practice a 1,2,3 backup strategy for all my data, but starting at the 5DSR and now thanks to my R5 bodies, the file sizes are getting crazy, I’m currently using 512GB cards and filling 1TB backup disks at an alarming rate. Even with culling and removing the JPEGS I find I’m constantly running out of space!A recent review of my now full NAS revealed I’ve got approximately 42TB of photos from 2019-now, none of which are duplicates! I’ve not even started on the videos I take, happily only occasionally.
This means it is getting crazy expensive to manage.. I run an 8 bay NAS in RAID6 (so lose 2 drives worth to redundancy,) it’s currently populated with 8TB drives and it’s full. I’m looking at having to buy 8x16TB drives at a cost of around $1200+ and backing up in the cloud has become really expensive, as with this amount of data you are looking at cloud buisness services, Backblaze seemed like a nice solution, as it’s unlimited but as ‘home’ user service, they don’t allow network drives,,
A second offsite NAS is about the only other viable solution but I’ll be looking at around another $2500 to do that. Constantly upgrading the drives is currently my only way out of the problem, however I’m not really fixing anything just moving the problem into the future.
Currently I’m at a bit of loss of how to deal with this, deleting the jpegs I’d missed, the duplicates I’d accidently copied only got me a couple of TB’s back. I’m actually considering using my own photos to train a AI model to go and find any blurry or very similar images I have missed during culling, however even then I suspect I’ll get very little space back in the grand scheme of things, either data storage needs to catch up with me, or I need to take a lot less photos, or start using my OM1 again ;-(
I can see only see this situation getting worse over time as MP sizes are not going down. I wonder how as a creator you cope, especially with a lot of video!
Hi David,
Having twice lost collections of pictures over the years I guess I’m a bit paranoid about backups. The losses were before digital, once courtesy of Kodak and once to a fire, but the lesson has stayed with me and , as you said, backups are cheap. With a Nikon D500 comes the benefit of a wifi connection so it isn’t difficult to set it to send every image to my cell phone and thence to the cloud and a web based storage solution. In my case this is my own website but it could be any cloud based storage. Once home the cards from the camera are downloaded to at least two separate drives simultaneously and then I can sleep at night! It’s an extension of the routine we all do with keeping our batteries charged and cards empty and formatted ready for whatever may come the next time we grab our bag in a rush and race out the door. I guess I’m not alone in having arrived at a shoot unprepared but, hopefully, I’ll only ever do it that one time! With backups though it really is down to each individual to come up with their own routine. Just keep it as simple and automated as possible!
All the best from a very overheated Italy.
Will
Hi David,
your newsletter is always very inspirational and provides a lot of food for thought.
What do I do with my photos? I mainly take photos for my own pleasure. I put a daily one on Instagram and use a lot of them for my blogposts where I love the connection with other bloggers. I also make greeting cards and sell them on Etsy, some of them are even bought. Some photos are inspiration for writing stories just for myself. Most of all, I love to look at them just for pleasure. Quite a while ago I started printing some of them in larger sizes and even got some canvas prints that are now hanging in our home. Oh, and I use them in my mixed media art.
When it comes to back-up – thankfully my husband is a Geek and we regularly back up our photos to several external hard-drives. One of them is in our grab-and-go box (we live in wildfire country), the other at my husband’s work which is a fire safe building (it survived the big wildfire in October 2017). I also have two back-up “locations” online. I guess we are a little bit paranoid about losing photos.
Thannk you always being such a great inspiration – Carola
Hi Carola! Sounds like you’ve got some of this really figured out! I love that your photographs are finding ways to have a life beyond your hard drives. You’ve inspired me to reconsider a grab-and-go box. We’re not yet in wildfire country, but we’re close and it’s getting closer by the year. The house is surrounded by forest so a box or two would be a good idea. Hoping you never have to use it!
way to apply the guilt!! I am terrible about backing up. I can come up with all kinds of excuses but like all excuses they all smell. I will try and do better about backing up. as for printing I print whatever I can and my wife likes it when she can change out the art on the walls.
No guilt, Stan. Just encouragement. I have BACKUPS set as a monthly recurring reminded. I see it on the calendar, I do it. I create new work, I do it. It’s all much easier if you have a simple system. You’ll sleep better at night if you know your work is safe. But you’re printing your work, so you’re half-way there! 🙂 (Now go do your backups!)
I’ve added a few Lightroom Collections for possible future uses of photos: Alternative Printing, Competitions, Personal Printing, for example. Then, while I am going through my initial selections and edits I can drop photos into the appropriate Collection. The alternative was to try to remember other purposes for images, and that does not work for me. I tell people I have a mind like a steel colander: things flow right out like spaghetti water. I review the Collections periodically to see what’s in there, and I often have a pleasant surprise when I see something I’d completely forgotten about.
A large hole, however, are the photos I have missed, those I have not rejected or picked during the initial reviews. I know there are photos I could be using for other purposes that have simply been overlooked. I need to review various shoots again looking for those lost possibilities. Besides, what I might determine to be useless at one point could actually be a lost gem, as my own point of view and vision changes over time. For example, as I develop better techniques doing alternative processes like salt prints, I could effectively use some of those overlooked photos.
You nailed it, Michael. It’s amazing how out tastes and skills change (technology too). I’ve found repeated re-visits to past projects have helped me find hidden gems – how often have I looked at an image that I now love that I initially passed over? So many. And what a thrill to spend time revisiting work and re-living the memories. BTW, Collections are really underused by most people – well done for making the most of them!
Thanks for your insights David. Always appreciated. I do print my work for my local Camera Club competitions and you are right it is motivating to see one’s work in print. Bit of an effort to get it right at times. love your continued advice. Thanks!
Glenn, always nice to see your name pop up. I am always amazed at how many photographers are missing not only the thrill of holding their work in their hands, but also the benefits. And I think it’s the “bit of an effort to get it right” that makes it so. Keep at it!
David this is a great video and you highlight two things that made a difference to me. One of your peers Scott Kelby got me to start printing and exactly as you say it changed the way I looked at my photos. Perhaps more importantly I discovered printing was a way to make my photos pass as a lasting bundle of joy to someone else! I shot at local harness team demo and because I like a story I captured them harnessing up the horses. I was able to share a simple set of prints from a local drug store with the owner of the team and he liked the prints of the team working in the arena but loved I had captured him and his granddaughter decorating the horses manes in the barn something he delighted in because of the time with her but few saw. Backups! Preach! I worked in IT before retiring and I obsess a little about backup for all the family computers. We traveled south to snowbird and it saved me. I shared the story with my local computer club and it got recorded now a video here https://youtu.be/-m7OlanVgvo
Right on, Sam. How is it we spend so much time and money on this craft only to let that hard work sit on a million hard drives, disorganized, and at risk of loss every time we plug them in. Like you, I obsess about backups – paranoia might be a better word. One RAID drive with all my images, one duplicate RAID to back them up, and yet another duplicate RAID offsite that I back up to every time I come home from a major assignment. Such peace of mind!
David, you asked:
“If your computer crashed right now or your main hard drive failed, how easy would it be to get back up and running without missing a beat or losing an image? ”
The short answer is, “Fairly easily”. When I was studying computers (GIS) back in the 80s one of our profs mentioned that he had taught a class where they gave every student several pages of text to type in, waited until they were mostly done, and then killed the power to the room. When they turned the power back on, he turned to the class and said, “Let’s talk about backups.” Auto-backup didn’t exist then. It was common to hear students in other labs talk about how many hours they had invested in… and then it was just gone.
I know Apple has something called Time Machine, but I don’t know much about it. However, in addition to backing up my images (separately) and my main computer hard drive, I HAVE had hard drives fail so I do a few things. The first is to create a Windows Recovery drive. The second is that I have a folder on my Desktop called Installed, and in that folder I have the installation files for every piece of software on my computer. When a new version comes out, I replace the existing version. Also in that folder is a password-protected file that has all of the licenses for everything in the Installed folder. Finally, for programs like Capture One Pro and CorelDraw for example, I have backups of the workspaces and settings files.
If my hard drive crashes, I replace the drive and run the Windows recovery disk to set up Windows on the new drive. I install my backup and other files in the Installed folder on the backup drive to do clean installs of the software in the Installed folder, and in case I missed something, check for updates while I’m at it.* I then use my backup software to restore my images, documents, etc. from the backup. This takes time, but within a couple of days I’m up and running again.
Mike.
* P.S. Because I take a backup with me, I don’t need the internet to do any of this if I don’t have access to good wifi at the time. It’s self-contained.
Wow, Mike. Thanks for sharing. Some good ideas in there. I think the big take-away is that there are other things you can lose – like your software and licenses. I keep my license codes in Evernote. You just never know!
Your comment about backing up your images reminded me of an incident when I was upgrading the power supply on my PC. Many people think that they can copy their images to a different hard drive in the computer. After all, what is the chance of two failing at the same time?
So, I changed out the power supply and thought it would be easy to just reuse the existing wiring in the PC. The plugs were the same. Big mistake! I turned on the PC and no hard drives appeared. All of them (3) fried! Turns out there is no standard in the way those similar plugs are wired.
The good news. I have been backing up all my files onto a NAS in the basement and so I could buy some new drives and get all of my 100,000 images back into Lightroom and nothing was lost.
Nothing lost! Not even a little sleep. This is the power of back ups – and knowing how to get back up and running if you have to. Thanks for sharing that, Steven!
David, you mentioned „small editing“ more than a year (?) ago which resonated strongly with me. Bevor but specifically after your suggestions These stepwise approach is essential in my workflow and gives me personally so much more to „deal“ with my photographs : I gain more insights, look more to details differentially and can try out new perspectives in everyway: Color, contrast, frame, exposure, you name it.
It is the search for what I wanted to show, to express. And I cannot seriously do that „in one shot“. Thank you so much for your multidimensional photographical journey.
Best regards, Jürgen
Thank you so much for joining me on that journey, Jürgen!
I frequently go through my “historic” work as I prepare presentations for the classes I teach. This often leads me to discover pictures I did not know I had taken. I’m remiss in revisiting the pictures I take when I’m attending photo workshops. I select for the critiques but often do not revisit for projects of my own. Thanks for all the suggestions. And Beyond the Shutter is a great course! I need to revisit it as well. 😉
Thanks, Kathy. The course is always yours, when the time is right to get back to it!
I down load my photos to a hard drive then brag to anybody who’ll listen about how many photos I have. Great for getting solitude at cocktail parties, not so much for picking up women. But seriously, during the pandemic I regularly printed and sent greeting cards to 15 family and friends. Seemed like a good idea as we sheltered in place. You know “reach out and touch someone the old fashioned way”. Then I started printing postcards and including 2 of them in the greeting card (with stamp included) to encourage the recipients to reach out too. Unfortunately I’ve slowed way down on this project. Another thought provoking discussion, Thanks David.
“Great for getting solitude at cocktail parties, not so much for picking up women.” – I nearly spit my coffee out, Rick. You came close to owing me a new keyboard. LOL. Very funny. I love the postcard idea. I did a project years ago called “Left & Found” – I printed 24 images of my work, then left the prints around town with a URL on the back of them explaining the idea – which was simply to share my work. Not sure why I didn’t follow through on that one…
What do I do with my photos? Try to share a favourite image daily on Instagram (and succeed most days @lindawride). Print small series – usually five images – for a rotating display on my home “gallery wall” (not as grand as it sounds!) Exhibit a couple of times a year with my local photographic society. Occasional have work published in photography magazines. Upload to a curated website (www.1x.com/lindaw) where my published images are available for sale (and occasionally sell!) Give illustrated talks to clubs and societies. Enter competitions and sometimes get published/exhibited as a result. Next up, learning how to create a handmade photo book. And when I have time, I just enjoy looking at them 😊
That last one is probably the most important, Linda. 🙂 I love that you’re actually getting your work into the word in some way, sharing not only the work but yourself too it seems. Well done! 👏👏👏
I often go back and review older images as my tastes change and new projects arise. In my case, I often create virtual copies in Lightroom and perform my edits on them. Different edits might end up in different projects without affecting each other.
David, is that the way you do it? Or do you just repeatedly edit the same image?
Absolutely. Editing is a living and organic process and for me it’s almost never completely done. I love virtual copies for my development work.
I’m addicted to photo books. I make 5 or 6 a year. Sometimes just images and place identification, and sometimes with lots of narrative and stories. I make a book for my grandkids for every family holiday. Already they are going back a few years and retelling stories when they go through the books. Any excuse for a book will do. Sometimes I notice that I’ve done a lot of something – abstracts or colours or flowers or wildlife – and I will make a book. I’m quite sure no one but me will ever look at (or want to keep) my images on my computer/hard drive, but people will keep my books. And hopefully smile.
And thank you for all your insights, David. Much appreciated!
You’re so welcome, Donna!
I love that you suggested printing your images, it’s such a worthwhile investment . Even if it’s just for viewing in my own place . Viewing them this way keeps me connected to my work in a much deeper and meaningful way. I also really love seeing the reactions of people when you give them prints it’s a very different reaction then sharing from a screen. I’m old school and started off a long time ago shooting film and printing.
David – you are an inspiration! Thank you. I really love your suggestions about printing and going through old photos – I have been hesitant to do that – but now, I am on the move!!
Fantastic! So much reward in printing your best work and living with it. Makes me a much better photographer, for sure!
Find your newsletters most interesting and for a casual photographer have learnt a lot. Thank you, David. Yes, my husband and I have backups for our computers – a must.
As for printing. We live in South Africa and do a lot of travelling. After each trip, long or short, we write a story which embraces all aspects of the trip from where we stay, eat, who we meet and the views and beauty there and back. Our best pics accompany the story. Using Word I compile the stories, by year for two or three years, which are printed in the equivalent of a coffee table book – some 234 pages (A4 size). The photos are often half a page to show them to best advantage. By having an index for each story we are able to turn to a particular story and the accompanying photographs making beautiful memories.
I love this, Aileen! So few people actual put their work into some material format, and I think the rewards are disproportionately positive. Well done! Also, thank you so much for reading!
As a newer subscriber I appreciate your refreshing delivery style David.
I have a few wall-hangers from our travels over the years but most of our efforts in “printing” go into creating photo books of our travels. When we’ve taken one of our grandkids on their benchmark trip to Yellowstone, we make a duplicate for them. Depending on the length of the trip, between my wife and I we’ll have 1000-1500 images to start with. I make the first edit of my images to stake a claim on the absolute “gotta have these”, then turn the job over to her to otherwise take no prisoners. Then I edit the keepers. It’s always satisfying to pull one the books off the shelf and relive a trip via our “printed” photos. It’s also interesting to note the evolution of expertise and style.
Thanks, Mark. I’m so glad you’re here! I love that you’re making books! I have found printing my work (or having it printed) makes me a better technical photographer but making books has, I think, made me a more creative photographer (never mind the thrill I get in making them!)
Another excellent article David.
Pertaining to hard drive backups; shortly after I purchased my first digital camera, years ago, I bought a hard drive for image backups. It’s connected to my home network and I highly recommend everybody get one and backup their computer. Your hard drive will fail, it’s not a matter of If, but a matter of When!
The drive I have is a one terabyte drive configured as RAID 1 (mirror). This means there are actually two identical one terabyte hard drives in the enclosure and both contain the exact same data. This way, if one of the backup drives fails, I still have not lost anything.
I use a program called SyncToy from Microsoft to backup my computer every night. Sadly, SyncToy is no longer available. However, there are other similar programs available, both free and paid. If you’re not already doing daily backups you should start now. It’s cheap insurance.
Thanks for that, Paul. Lots of excellent strategies out there, which makes it even more amazing that so many photographers just seem OK with gambling on a loss never happening.
I’m writing really just to say’hello’ as you suggested!
I have long been a fan of yours thanks to a very good friend here in Istanbul, and have done 2 of your wonderful courses. I have just read this newsletter and it is particularly appropriate at the moment as I have just come back from a fabulous 3 day phototrek to eastern Turkey. Last night we had the ‘review’ of our photos so editing is very much in my mind. I have forwarded the newsletter to two of my photoclub friends and I am sure they will find it beneficial so thank you!
PS I always get very nervous with talk of hard drives and backing up. I think I have done everything right but it still brings me out in a cold sweat.
Am I right in thinking that good friend is Linda? 🙂 She was with us here in Kenya a week ago and we miss her energy! Thank you for saying hello, don’t be a stranger! 😉
David: Thank you for continuing to do what you do. A few thoughts on backups:
1) ALL data is ephemeral. I’ve had hard drives crash in the past, and it’s never fun. I’ll leave the backup strategy to you, but make sure you have one and implement it regularly.
2) (Windows) I keep all of my images, catalogues, catalogue backups, keywords, metadata, etc. in sub-folders in the Pictures folder. That way, by backing up the Pictures folder I backup everything except the software itself. In Lr for example there’s an option to store options with catalogue. In Capture One it’s a bit more complex, but I make a copy of the folder that holds all of the custom shortcuts, etc. and keep that for re-installation.
2b) Speaking of backups, if you’re using Lr or Capture One (don’t know about others) there’s an option to backup your catalogue(s). This does NOT backup your images, but does store a backup of all of your edits, keywords, etc. NB: These backups are never deleted and over time can occupy gigabytes of hard drive space. I delete all backups that are over 60 days old.
3) I have a folder on my computer called Installed, and in there I keep the installation files of all of the software on my computer. Within that folder is a Notepad file called Licenses, and in that file is a list of all of the software licenses for my computer. If my computer dies and/or the hard drive crashes, I reinstall Windows from the flash drive recovery, copy the Installed file from my backup drive and restore all of the software installation files, then run my backup software and restore all of the data files, images, etc. It takes me a couple of days, but that’s just the time it takes to do everything.
Mike.
P.S. Recently had a 12×30″ panorama custom matted/ framed. You don’t want to know the price but it looks great on the wall!
Thanks so much for that generous reply, Mike. Those that are keen on reading these comments always get something from the hive mind. 🙂 I just printed a 30×60 on canvas for my studio – I think the shipping cost more than the actual art. 🙂
Hi David, I love your e mails and learn so much from them. Presently I am working through your book The Tool Kit as my project in camera club fior this year. I make a calendar every year and a year book as well as making cards with my photos.
David, I read most of your articles, although I don’t think I’m in your target group. I just take photos of things of interest, and of family. When I take photos, I put them on an external hard drive, which is then backed up to another external hard drive. With each import to the initial hard drive, I also import them into Apple photos, stored in the cloud, so basically I have 3 copies of each photo, over 80,000 so far. I don’t edit any of the photos unless I am going to create a book, which I have done 27 so far, or print it out, which I have done just recently. I also metatag every photo when I import them into Apple photos.
Hi Bill, if you find something in most of my articles then I’d say you’re exactly the kind of person I’m writing for. Whether my deeper resources like courses are for you, or everyone for that matter, is up to individuals. I’m here when or if you need me. 🙂
I am an amateur, and work with my smartphone (iPhone 13). What is your editing workflow, and do you have a preferred editing application?
I use Lightroom for almost everything, Jack. I’ve got a preferred workflow but that would take a while to teach thoroughly. As luck would have it this is a big part of the course I’m about to make available again for 2023. It’s called Beyond The Shutter. By the time you read this you should have received more information. You can also see it, while it’s available at https://www.beyondtheshuttercourse.com/
I made two on-demand books last year but failed on the pdf monographs or individual box prints. I started rewatching the course since the last video. It’s a good time to evaluate what concepts stuck with me and what didn’t (but maybe should have). It’s nice to see and hear from you. A bit of a mind bend to see the same but different videos. Hoping all is well on the west coast.
Your suggestion to revisit your old edits is an excellent idea. I have done this several times and the outcomes are often quite different, and very rewarding.
As for my backup technique, I have all my images on 2 hard drives and also uploaded to Amazon photos ( with prime you have unlimited storage). I also backup my Lightroom catalog to an dual disk NAS drive. I think this will keep me safe.
Good to hear from you too, Stephen. Hope you’re well. Best regards from Kenya. Drop me a line sometime and let know where your recent adventures have taken you!
One of the things I started last year was a monthly zine. I will be reducing this to quarterly, making them a bit longer and richer. People LOVE the Zines. My work, printed, in their hands at a very affordable price.
Fantastic, Dennis!
To me a very important thing is printing – I’m glad you mentioned it in your “speech” ! I print only very few images because I can not fill my home or walls (can not afford to buy new walls) with prints. Printing is important – and actually an important part of this whole hobby or profession – because it is in fact quite difficult to make a really printable photograph.
Lately I have been trying to photograph snow – sounds odd. It is IMO really difficult and a challenge to make prints of landscapes/nature with snow that really is white like snow is and not some strange grayish stuff or so white , that I’m looking at white paper without any details … It is quite easy to post process images so that everything looks nice and bright on my 5K 27″ iMac screen. And then the print is something different. Printing teaches also a lot.
And if we some day make a book or create an exhibition or whatever , we should have the printing skill and a printer at home because it is difficult to order big prints or a book if we do not know what we want and what we really have.
I have to tell, that I know what snow is and how many different qualities it has – as a child I lived in a place where winters were really full of playing in the snow and my first B&W photographs were taken of a snowy meadow… Of course there are also many other projects going on white the images I have captured with a camera, winter is over very soon here in southern Finland.
I suffered two hard drives crashes in the 2022. Initially I went through major psychic angst of the loss. Did send the first away to recover the data, mainly because there were all my wife’s ancestral images on that drive. Cost me close to $2000 all in. With the second I considered, why was I saving these images? I have no commercial aspirations anymore. I just take photos for my own pleasure and to share a few of the better ones on Facebook, iNaturalist and 500px. Rarely elsewhere.
So now if my back catalogue dies, who cares? All ephemera and vanity anyway. Go on to create as I see fit and truly do not care about the older stuff.
I am not advocating anyone else do this, really a matter of personal preference. (and a bit of a Buddhist mindset)
Oh. And as for culling, now I am ruthless. Why store images one one will ever see?
Dave, my man, how’s it going brother?
I’ve got a question: when is “backlight” coming out? You teased us about it, but either I missed it or it hasn’t come out yet. Come on brother, may the light shine on backlight.
Hey man, lots going on but I promise you haven’t missed Backlight. I was gauging interest back in November and it was high, so the moment I’ve cleared off my current projects, I’ll be back to making it a reality. 2023 promises to be a weird year for me, but Backlight is one of the big rocks.
David First let me thank you for all of your written works I LOVE THEM> Now ? ? How many photos are left of the chip? MILLIONS , why? intimidation. There are so many people print so calle training books on getting started with Lightroom Classic which is good BUT 95 % of do not know what the hell is being said. I think that if someone would write a instruction book on how to get started in Lightroom Classic in BABY STEPS, it would help those of us that are not computer literate. Step one How to set up your external hard drive and it’s folders ( import from chip to folders on the hard drive and then name them. Step 2 How to import them into collections on your computer BABY steps to set up. ????? Donald Goeschl
Donald – Short reply as WIFI is making things difficult here in Kenya, but check out the course I’m making available this week: https://www.beyondtheshuttercourse.com/ – it covers exactly what you asked for and more. And if it’s not for you there’s a no-fine print money-back guarantee.
I relate completely to this article. I’ve travelled to many places either as part of a vacation tour or a specific photo shoot. I don’t do much of that now, but my images go back to the first digital cameras and, before that, scanned colour negatives. As technology has improved, I revisit my photo-treasures and can constantly improve them. For these “oldies”, I find that Topaz Gigapixel AI is a godsend for improving their quality so they approach the vision I had when they were shot. And, yes, my small home gallery needs refreshing far more frequently just like a department store window.
Hey David! What is your back up system? I B/U to 2 separate hard drives, then when done with editing also burn my top picks to DVD. The work that is done in LR mobile when traveling is also B/U on the web automatically. I am considering backing up everything to the web as well. Would you add something else?
Thanks!
Ralph
Once I’ve removed the obvious images (out of focus etc.) and rated (yes, no, maybe), I’ve discovered that no matter how I feel about my photos it’s best to let them sit. When I think I’ve been able to capture some fantastic images or feel that I likely got nothing worth my time, it doesn’t matter. Some distance in time (a day or two) let’s me look at the images a bit more objectively. Sometimes the images are worse or better than I felt initially. Waiting let’s me be more critical. I do smaller edits and tweaks to the remaining images. I don’t find the edit is ever really done. If I see something I’d like to modify it’s worth doing. These days, with software, I don’t need to muck up the previous edit. Create a variant of the original image or previous edit and adjust some more.
And yes, backups! I offload the camera to my computer and create a backup on an external drive. Only then will I format the card in the camera.
I certainly agree that actually MAKING something with my photos makes me much more critical of my work. This is a good thing in my opinion! Doesn’t matter if it is a greeting, card, print for my wall (or even the fridge), a calendar or a book; I look at those photos with different eyes!