Do you keep your negatives?

I have pretty much the same categories that Ian describes. When I'm photographing birds, for instance, random factors like subject movement, wind, quickly changing light, and such necessitate making many exposures, because you can't tell when you've got it, even when you're fairly sure you've got it in the field, until you edit. If I've got three great shots and maybe 10 usable ones for certain circumstances and 15 others that are wrong for some reason or other, all of the same bird from the same setup, I toss the 15 that failed. They just clog the files and become a storage problem.

I once lost many of my early negs to a basement flood. I was away at school, and my parents had moved to a new house and didn't realize they had a flooding problem. When I came back, I went through all the pages to see what could be cleaned and salvaged and what was important, and I made some choices, and although I would have rather not have been forced to make some of those choices because some negs were unsalvageable, I thought it was a good exercise in the end. I had enough distance from them at that point to know what would be interesting later on, and I have gone back and printed some of those images.

Now the main issue is Manhattan real estate. If you live in a house in the suburbs, sure, go ahead, save everything (though I still think there are advantages to editing, even if you have room for all the negatives you ever make). If one lives in Manhattan or central London or another expensive high-density city, it really is necessary to think about every square foot. Just to give an example, I own a classic Gibson L-50 archtop guitar that I bought with the original case. The original case makes the guitar more valuable to collectors, but Gibson used the same case for everything in those days even if it didn't fit particularly well, and I bought it to play and needed a practical case that would protect the instrument, and I couldn't afford to be a collector of bulky guitar cases, so I had no problem selling off the case to a collector, even if it was worth more with the guitar should I decide to sell it in the future, because the difference in price is far less than the cost for even one month of owning or renting a larger apartment.

The only negatives that I do throw away are the ones that are seriously damaged. And they really have to be badly damaged for me to toss them. I keep everything else. They dont take up that much room for me.

I tend to destroy those that I feel have not quite made it......then when they've gone I feel some would have made a decent print after all, but then it's too late. We don't always appreciate what we've got until its gone.

I destroyed most of my tranies some years ago.

BTW I also destroy the contact sheets along with the negs.

Every so often I springclean my files and chuck out stuff which just doesn't mean anything to me any more-time allows you to look at your work more objectively. From time to time though, I do find stuff which I didn't think that much of at the time but which I now find much more interesting [such as family portraits I did as a kid] which maybe foreshadows a new direction in my work. By and large I feel I've made the right calls as far as keeping vs chucking-I rarely chuck portraits out because you can't go back 10 years and photograph great auntie Alison or whoever, but you can revisit a landscape.

Those negs that don't produce a good print (excessively under or overexposed, out of focus etc), composed poorly, or scratched I pitch.

I keep about 60% of my negs. Given they are 8x10 storage becomes a BIG issue, I have four 2 inch binders FULL of negs I shot between May and August. Shooting LF and being of the mindset that all you negs possess some intrinsic or instrumental value is foolish. It becomes to expensive, time consuming and space consuming to keep negs that may some day be worthy of putting into a scrapbook. Plus; how often do you look back through your old negatives and find one that is amazing, which you somehow missed on the last six times you looked through your negative box, not counting the heavy examination after proofing. I realize that style mutates, vision matures and composition evolves; as that occurs shoot new negs to express it rather then looking back for some assurance you are going in the right direction, let that come through critique and sales.

Moral? Bad negatives are not fixed by time. Let them go.
keep working, better negs will come.

Yours:

"Do you keep your negatives?"

Yes!

And it is so sad how few people do (did).

In this digi age - there are no negs to save.

But there once were.

My wife's mother recently died. She'd saved tons of faded prints. But always considered the negs to be trash. And so, yes, she trashed them.

My wife asked if I could "restore" the prints. I asked here where the negs were - and - you know the answer....

If you want to trash something - throw out the prints! Keep the negs!

I have never thrown any of my negatives or transparencies out and according to my wife not much else either.
Like George, my mother-in-law threw all the negatives of their family pictures out keeping the prints, a lot of which are now faded or damaged.
Looking back at some of the prints I have I am glad to have kept the negatives since in some cases they are a historic record of buildings or events from the past. It's interesting that some of the negatives that I processed in the mid 60s are in excellent condition especially when the circumstances they were processed under left a lot to be desired.

Gord

Negs that I consider "good" as in I release prints from them, are "retired" after I have printed from them. My negs are sort of part of my legacy. Perhaps my son will want to print from his daddy's negatives someday while he learns his own way. Ones that suck, or have problems, are trashed, but I keep a few bad ones around, esp ones that are clear examples of certain problems, for my own reference, and to show others.

Other negs, like my snappy stuff, are saved for family reasons.

My negatives are part of my memory; I don't throw them away.

I'm a publishing writer (academic mostly), but I certainly don't save all my old drafts--not even electronic versions. If I have a draft with an editor's or colleague's comments, I may save that or I may archive it digitally, and I keep a current draft or the last one before it went to the publisher, but I don't have the time or space to save everything, and I rarely have to go back to old drafts. If I remove some large chunk from a manuscript and think it may be useful later, I usually dump it in an "outtakes" file for future reference.

I not only keep my negatives (even most of the bad ones to remind me of something or someplace I might want to photograph again), I keep my father's negatives and my grandparent's negatives. You never know who might find value in them in the future.


Wayne

David, I'm not necessarily talking about drafts. Kevin was encouraging destroying each negative after he had a final print. If you keep the final draft before it goes to the publisher, you aren't doing what Kevin suggests.

- CJ

I keep the negatives and the contact sheets. They don't take up a lot of room, and are well organized. Some kid, grandkid or other future descendant will find them interesting. If someone throws them out they will be haunted.

jovo said:

...
I can't imagine any such person feeling that their original rendering is and will always be the sole definitive one.

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or that the 5th, 6th or 137th is their finest effort with regard to the neg (or the score). I'll never know what my best print from a neg will be until I'm done printing or done trying to interpret the neg. I have negs that I print differently depending upon what it is I'm after. I have negs that I print differently because each time I print it I'm a bit better at the craft or have an improved/more developed empathy or understanding for the item or subject. I could never make a good print and then toss the neg.

On the flip side, I force my self to throw negs out (and prints). I make far to many, and I go down far too many blind paths and dead ends.

Yes

The terrible truth is I even keep the negs of a friend of mine. She always has these great photos of her adorable son, but she throws away the negs (in fact she recently swore "I don't think they don't give you negs anymore") AND wrecks the prints. Drives me crazy!

Posts on the topic of producing one print and destroying the negative have been moved to the previous thread on that topic--

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Cheryl Jacobs said:

David, I'm not necessarily talking about drafts.

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Sorry for not responding more directly. I was addressing the original topic more than the idea of producing one print from one negative. The negatives and transparencies that I discard are often like those intermediate drafts that I don't feel the need to store.

I keep all of mine and my Dad's negatives from the 1940's and 50's. Some were never printed and I am glad I have them.

Today I sorted through my LF negatives from 2007, changing them from chronological order to being ordered by model (or for a minority of negatives, subject). It felt really good to look back at what I've done this year: how I've changed themes, developed my style, and how I've improved technically (and also recognising those areas where I still need improvement). Unfortunately I've no fabulous out-takes like Cheryl's to share . OK there's one, but it'll probably get me death threats even with the NSFW flag, so I think I'll pass up the opportunity to share it .

I also took the opportunity to discard some of the excess: 44 10x8 and 30 5x4 negs are now awaiting a shredder powerful enough to chew them up. That still leaves 4 boxes full of negs (actually 289 10x8 and 167 5x4 negs - with a few more to add when they're developed). I expect there are probably another 20-30 which will go when I do my next sort through. I think it's definitely worth clearing away the excess so that when I'm printing from my 2007 negs I'm able to concentrate on my best work not the "also rans". I recognise that I may have thrown out one or two that I'll regret later (assuming I can even remember what was on them which I doubt), but I've got plenty of other good ones and will also make plenty more good ones next year. So on balance I'm up .

Same here-been having another sortout today.

About ten years ago I threw out literally a grocery sack full of LF negatives. I'm thinking Mt Rainier ain't goin nowhere. I can shoot it again, just go get another box of supper-xx. Those shots showed the glaciers much further down the mountain then now. I now wear out boots kicking myself in the butt for doing it. KEEP'EM.

My grandfather just passed away. And after the funeral we went through boxes of old photos. Some faded, wrinkled. All very small. I would have loved to find some negatives there to create something really good prints in the darkroom for my relatives. The same with my fathers old pictures. It is a pitty noone seems to keep their negatives except professional photographers.
/matti

vet173 said:

KEEP'EM.

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Too late, I had my shred-fest yesterday!

Actually, I've been thinking about this thread while I've been clearing space. On the surface it’s straightforward: to keep or not to keep, that is the question. But is it really so simple? In many ways this is a surrogate question for, “Why do I make photographs?” Or perhaps more specifically, “Why did I make this photograph?”

I make different photos for different reasons. Most of those I show here on APUG are made for artistic reasons. They are the product of collaboration with a model (very often over several different sittings): we’ll try an idea, change it a bit, try something different, come back to the original idea, and eventually hit on the right composition. While working we use polaroids, and between the sittings I’ll develop the negatives and make test prints. But those are all merely drafts which become irrelevant once the final composition is done. I see no reason to take up valuable space with drafts.

Another example: I went to Rome last year and used up about a dozen rolls of 35mm film. One of those shots turned out to be really, really good and later became very important to me for other reasons. But all the others were lesser. So I’ve kept the strip with that one important negative and ditched the rest – after all, they have no meaning other than as holiday snaps.

On the other hand there are other negatives that I wouldn’t even consider discarding: a portrait of my Dad shortly before he died (it’s badly composed and technically flawed but it’s the only one I have); some of my best trannies (such as the attached 6x7 of Mow Cop) which were from the time when I realised that photography was important to me, even if I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it then; and some of Cuckmere in Sussex (it’s due to have it’s sea defences removed and be returned to coastal flood plain soon - I’m interested in seeing what it’ll be like in a few years). So I do keep various sentimental, personal and historical negatives. But these are the minority.

I suppose what I’m saying is that a dogmatic, “keep everything,” approach is to me excessive. It’s more important to identify and keep the important things, which means identifying and discarding the unimportant. Otherwise the important will be lost amongst the unimportant – where’s the benefit in that?

matti said:

My grandfather just passed away. And after the funeral we went through boxes of old photos. Some faded, wrinkled. All very small. I would have loved to find some negatives there to create something really good prints in the darkroom for my relatives. The same with my fathers old pictures. It is a pitty noone seems to keep their negatives except professional photographers.

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I’m soon to take custody of the family archive of photos including many negatives made in the early 20th century. The sad thing is that although the negatives have been kept they haven’t been indexed or identified, and the generation who could identify these people has passed…

matti said:

My grandfather just passed away. And after the funeral we went through boxes of old photos. Some faded, wrinkled. All very small. I would have loved to find some negatives there to create something really good prints in the darkroom for my relatives. The same with my fathers old pictures. It is a pitty noone seems to keep their negatives except professional photographers.
/matti

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i know what you mean matti ...

last spring ( 2006 ) i "restored" 35+ photographs from the first part
of the 20th century ( or earlier ) ... some were carte de visites, some were
thumbnail tintypes, and some were toned silver prints .. they were all so beautiful ...

i wish i had the film to print too

john

I keep all my negatives. I never know when I'll want to reprint/revisit a particular negative. I don't know about the rest of you, but my tastes in my own photos changes considerably over time...a photo I love at first is often the most hated over time and vice-versa. So I try not to get rid of any.

Also, who was it who started this trend? One of the Westons if I remember correctly. Maybe for people trying to artificially drive the price of their prints up or use it as a gimmick to sell something "original"...as if each wet print wasn't original already...

I don't shoot huge amounts - maybe a 50 sheet box of 4x5 and 20 sheets of 8x10 a year and misc roll film, but I keep everything, except the obviously useless ones. I know what film looks like when its fixed before it's developed, so that goes in the bin.

I mainly shoot for documentery, rather than artistic reasons, so I file eveything away. Which reminds me, I have a shoot a building tomorrow before it's torn down.

The building photo's in my gallery that I shot on Ektachrome Infrared are now gone and its a level gravel parking lot there.