What's your proportion of keepers?

Richard

I started doing photography a bit over two years ago. In the beginning I shot everything in sight. Needless to say, it was mostly trash, and I threw out 95% of it. Since I was shooting hundreds of pics a week, by the logic of infinite monkeys I managed to get some decent shots.

OK, so now I guess I am in my junior year of photography. I have studied a lot, spent an inordinate amount of money on equipment and shot tens of thousands of frames. But I am still throwing out 95% of what I shoot. Now I suppose that by learning more I have also become more demanding. While I would like to think that the overall quality of my work has improved, I sometimes fear that the infinite monkeys are still in charge.

Does this ever change? What has been your experience? How long will it take before I should expect to need to carry fewer memory cards rather than more?

Regards,

saurora

Ah! Interesting food for thought, Richard. Like you, I haven't seen any changes in my percentage of "keepers". I am going to guess that for a long time as one advances (hopefully) the percentages remain the same, but the quality of the keepers rises. Eventually I would imagine you don't take as many shots in order to get the one you're after, which would increase your percentage. Yeah, and you shouldn't have to carry around all those darn heavy cards that take up so much space in your camera bag!

ginger_55

Hi, you all!! Gosh, if anyone had said that their keepers had increased dramatically, I would have been so disappointed. Mine haven't. Yes, I am more demanding. But that isn't what does it. It is my style of shooting.

I don't use a tripod, I like the freedom of shooting and asking questions later. I get shots that way, by what is it called, "the wisdom of monkeys" or something.

On the other hand, my father always had a large proportion of keepers. They weren't better than mine.....that was his style of shooting, and he was proud of his percentage of keepers. Actually, I think he was going for 100% keepers and only death kept him from meeting that goal.

That is not my goal. I don't even dwell on it. I do wish I would clean out my hard drives from extras, but even they come in handy sometimes.

Some days I should throw it all out, and other days, I can keep maybe 20%. Actually, if I had time, I could keep more than that. They are not WOW shots, usually, or they are what I consider almost WOW shots. And, believe it or not, I have sold some of those. So, if I had the time I would work up and keep more.

But, no, my percentage is the same.

Now where are the hooded Merssengers, or whatever those ducks are called. And on the way to finding them, I will shoot what looks interesting by action/subject/or light. Can't keep them all. Some of them I even wonder what I was thinking!

Smile,

Happy days!

ginger

Sam

Interesting thread. Today I bought a magazine called Photographer's Forum. There is an article about Jerry Uelsmann. To quote the article: Jerry has over 100 individual exhibitions on almost every continent. His images have been colleted by museums, institutions, and individuals worldwide. He has published seven books including “Other Realities” with 60 of his most loved images from his career.
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One statement he made for this article stuck in my mind. Quote: “ Every year I produce 100 or more different pictures. At the end of the year, I try to find ten I really like, many years I can’t find ten that measure up.”

We all strive at our own level to create the very best that we can. As we progress in our technical skills the percentage of photos that are technically good increases dramatically. We then become more discriminating with regard to color, light, subject matter, and composition. Where we once were ecstatic to have photos where we could actually identify the subject matter, we now demand they invoke passion, and stir the heart. Such is the never-ending hunt for the elusive snipe.

Sam

jsedlak

Great thread. I think my percentage goes up as I get used to the camera. With that said I would like to say the percentage goes up from 1% to 10-20%. It is never a static percentage though, some days (rarely!) I will keep 80-90% and some days I throw everything out (not really, just don't post process them).

On the subject of keepers versus trash, does anyone else keep a copy of every single picture they take and leave it untouched? I do because I like to revisit photos as I learn new post processing techniques as well as just to check my progress.

Thusie

This seems to be a universal question, see it pop up other places as well.

I actually keep less now than when I started and I'm certainly pickier, 10% is about average.

Richard

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. It seems I am not alone, which is good to know.

claudermilk

Ah, this question again.

I've found that my skill has increased at almost the same rate as how demanding I have become. Thus, my keeper rate is holding about steady on average (some days I do better than others--lately I'm in a bit of a slump).

However, depending on the event I might have to increase the keepers above what I'd normally do; when shooting dance shows I have been "informed" :smack that the dancers would really like to see more shots than what I had been releasing. So, with much grumbling and caveats on my part, I've boosted the keeper rate on those events. They're happy, so I guess I'm happy.

BigAl

I normally only throw away the real junk (oof, camera shake, bad lighting etc) I park the rest off on DVD with no way of knowing what's where apart from some cryptic labelling on the DVDs (pretty much like my slide collection).

Those that really like, I work on and upload some to smugmug...

gluwater

BigAl wrote:

I normally only throw away the real junk (oof, camera shake, bad lighting etc) I park the rest off on DVD with no way of knowing what's where apart from some cryptic labelling on the DVDs (pretty much like my slide collection).

Those that really like, I work on and upload some to smugmug...

I do just about the same thing. I don't throw out all the "bad" shots, I keep them for later thinking I will eventually use them for something. But the % of shots that I actually take the time to process is probably 5-10%, sometimes more, sometimes less. Like others I now take less shots and also keep better shots so the images I kept and processed a year ago would go in the trash today. The percentage of keepers doesn't really matter, it is the quality of the shots you keep and the amount of satisfaction you get from takeing them that is important.

NHBubba

As w/ others, my 'keeper ratio' is very very low. I am lucky to come away w/ 5 or 10 real 'good' photos a year. A huge part of that is because photography is not my day job and finding time to post-process is becoming more and more difficult. I have scores of shots that I feel could be good if I only invested some time into finishing them.

That said, I still shoot 80-90% crap. That is something I've been trying to work on for years..

As to what I hang onto vs what I throw out, I am a digital pack-rat and hang onto nearly everything. Mostly I only delete the really blatantly out of focus, poorly exposed, or boring shots. I archive probably about 95% of what I shoot.

Scott_Quier

I actually have to "keeper" rates:

• One rate represents the photos that I process for the client. I have no way of knowing which one(s) the client is going to like. So, this group is all the "technically" decent shots, not OOF, exposure, etc. This rate is running in the neighborhood of 25% - 40%, depending on the shoot.
• The other rate represents the ones I would keep if/when I'm just shooting for myself. This rate started out quite low and has remained there. I don't really calculate it, but I'm guessing it's in the range of 1% - 3%. And, like many here, it's the result of my criteria getting more and more stringent as my experience increases and my technique improves.