Hide your bad photos

[naugastyle]

I distance myself by leaving film to be latent long after I've shot it. Not years, but quite a few months typically. The more I let it sit, the more objective I become towards it. Of course with that comes the risk of loss of memory of the moment - which can make contextual description more difficult.

You know already I disagree strongly with this, at least as an approach for myself. I wouldn't take the risk of memory loss, at least not for film from anything remotely important. If I wanted to wait months before editing, if I truly believed that would help me become more objective, there's no real reason I can't immediately develop & scan it, have a general idea of what it all looks like, give the files names that help me remember the details...and THEN not edit them further, not print them, not show them to my friends, not post them publicly anywhere for months. To me, the lag on developing has nothing to do with giving yourself time to edit.

I think I edit myself quite strictly as it is. Thus far I don't think I've ever looked back at an old photo I once thought was great and realized it really isn't...or if I have, it's an extraordinarily small ratio. Which is not to say every photo I print/post is AMAZING... but even with the just-ok photos, I had good reasons for liking them, and after years go by I'll relook and still find the same reasons.

On the other hand, I have with time found photos that I thought were only so-so to be pretty damn good, so I definitely enjoy looking through my archives for those...

 

[Mike1234]

What bad photos? I have no bad photos!!

[sweeps crappy images under rug]

And freak you for even INSINUATING that I'm not PERFECT!!!

 

[Iwagoshi]

I don't throw anything away, I save the leader for fixer testing and I'm making Xmas decorations with the 120/35mm spools (just kidding about the spools). If it is exposed properly and the image is discernable, I "throw it up on the wall to see if it sticks.*" (*A phrase used in college to determine the cleanliness of underwear. Of course if it doesn't stick, becomes tiresome, it comes off the wall and filed for future review.

 

[Q.G.]

If it sticks, will it be served with meat balls and tomato sauce?

Anyway: anyone who shows all both doesn't shoot enough and will find it increasingly hard to find someone to look at the stuff.
Bad enough that you have to look at all the 'unfortunate mishaps' yourself.

 

[jeffreyg]

Have three boxes YES, NO, and MAYBE. Edit wait until you have forgotten what is in each box and look at them again. See if you think your first impression was best.

 

[Iwagoshi]

"If it sticks, will it be served with meat balls and tomato sauce?"
No, it's much better with calamari and pesto.

Is this very bad habit? Will my better photos be hidden by not so good ones? I know also that I don't shoot only for me - many people don't care so much for opinion of others - but I do. I want to prove "something" to myself, but to other people also. Don't ask me what is this "something"

I left photography because of this, the weight of other opinions and the pursuit to prove something. The pursuit sucked the joy out of the process.
But now I'm back, for the pure fun of it, the joy of the process. If no one else likes what I'm doing? Well too bad, I'm having a blast.

So what I'm saying is go ahead and chase the brass ring (be critical, show only your best) but beware of the burn out factor.