How many prints do you have?

[darkosaric]

I was reviewing my 2017 prints lately, and I have noticed that I have really huge amount of my prints since 2006 when I started to make silver gelatin prints.
So all in all I have 300+ prints 30x40cm, around 6-700 prints 18x24cm, and over 1000 prints 13x18cm or smaller. This stuff piles up !

What about you ?

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I was reviewing my 2017 prints lately, and I have noticed that I have really huge amount of my prints since 2006 when I started to make silver gelatin prints.
So all in all I have 300+ prints 30x40cm, around 6-700 prints 18x24cm, and over 1000 prints 13x18cm or smaller. This stuff piles up !

What about you ?

a few thousand, going for quality not quantity

 

[Theo Sulphate]

Thousands.

 

[Paul Howell]

+1, maybe 7 to 10 thousand, some at my house others in storage, don't have room. not to mention the shoots I did for the AF and the wires. My list of things to do, cull the herd, get the file down to a couple thousand or so.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

I only have maybe a couple thousand left. A few years ago I chucked a huge amount. Kinda figured why bother keeping them? No one will care about them when I am pushing up daisies.

 

[spijker]

I have nowhere near as many prints. But it makes me wonder. How do you store them, in (archival) boxes? Do you ever look at these hundreds/thousands of prints? Don't you find it discouraging to spent all this time/effort/money and then the end result just goes into a storage box? I'm not criticizing here but I'm struggling a bit with finding justification for my own printing.

 

[paul ron]

45 years worth, both for business and personal.

im also 2 years behing printing recent stuff.

edit: hahaha storage is a problem. comercial stuff are mostly negs, some prints stored in empty paper boxes. My personal prints are on my and family walls some sold. i use box portfolios and empty paper boxes for extra prints. i should have parked a bull dozer in the garage first before stuffing it up.

 

[darkosaric]

I have nowhere near as many prints. But it makes me wonder. How do you store them, in (archival) boxes? Do you ever look at these hundreds/thousands of prints? Don't you find it discouraging to spent all this time/effort/money and then the end result just goes into a storage box? I'm not criticizing here but I'm struggling a bit with finding justification for my own printing.

I store them in the same boxes in which are purchased.
Often I review them - usually I go for a year (for example 2016 year review). Not only that I enjoy look at them, it also bring back memories, also I review how did I print them - and eventually print them again if I want to.

I am glad that I am not the only one who counts them in thousands. Even Polaroid/Instax I have couple of hundreds prints.

For the money/time/effort --> you need to spend the money on something (you cannot take the money on another side), beside traveling - I don't see a better way than use it for the Hobby (with capital H).

 

[removed account4]

hi darko
i love lots of prints ( both postiives and negatives ) , and even more test strips !

 

[jim10219]

Wow! I have like 20 at my house, and then maybe another 20 on public display (but still owned by me). I tend to throw any away that I don't love or have noticeable flaws. And I don't print stuff unless I have a buyer, show, or some other reason to make one. For archiving, sorting, deciding, and all of that stuff, I use digital scans of the images. So most of my shots never make it past the digital scanning stage. A few might get selected for upload to the internet. And only a few of those ever make it into a physical print. The way I see it, the more prints of yours that just sit in a closet, the more it costs you money, and the less valuable your prints will become.

 

[Paul Howell]

I keep mine in boxes, I label each box with a index of what's in the box and rough date of when shot. I usually store 80 prints in a 8X10 paper box, 30 to 40 in 11X14 50 sheet box, and again around 80 in a 5X7 paper box. I have some in banker boxes, date range in 1964, high school, to current date. I don't print as much as I once did, and don't print as many digital files I would have printed if I had shot film. I could easily cut my horde by 1/2 maybe more. Of course the Air Force, newspapers and wire services I worked for still have all the negatives I shot. Then again maybe not, don't know what happened to the papers that are no longer in business, the Sacramento Union and Mesa Tribune. UPI still hase it's photo library. I imagine the Air Force archived what someone thought was worth saving, the rest recycled for the sliver.

 

[bence8810]

Started printing about 3 years ago and have around 5-600 prints. I store them in their original boxes like also mentioned above and regularly look at them.
I mainly print 5x7" (13x18) and this allows me to take it with me to places and show to people which is great.

Anything larger than 5x7" would be on my wall, the largest being 110x80cms.... that was a fun print.

Ben

 

[Theo Sulphate]

... Do you ever look at these hundreds/thousands of prints? Don't you find it discouraging to spent all this time/effort/money and then the end result just goes into a storage box? I'm not criticizing here but I'm struggling a bit with finding justification for my own printing.

I know people who use Chatbooks ( https://chatbooks.com/ ) to put their photos into book form inexpensively (~$10); the ones I've seen are pretty nice. (I am not affiliated with Chatbooks in any way)

I'm writing a non-fiction book that will include my photos, even if it's only a few dozen photos out of many thousands.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Definitely not thousands. I only keep the prints that I like and I do not stockpile prints. I usually mount them and give them to friends.

 

[Vaughn]

I might as well count raindrops...

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Few. Maybe two hundreds in our home. I give them away after printing, or print if someone like working print.

 

[MattKing]

Lots!
And if you counted slides ........

 

[Sirius Glass]

Way too many slides to count.

 

[ChuckP]

I've got a few thousand. I find that my photographs tend to follow a bell curve. Most are Ok, a few are really bad and even fewer good enough to make the mat board. I usually quickly toss the bad ones. Keep a few for spotting practice and warming up to use the paper cutter when mounting. But I keep the Ok ones because you never know when your tastes will change. I'll leave it to the executer of my estate to toss things out. I may note that the archival storage boxes have some value and maybe someone will need the mount board to mount their print on the other side. Boxes and mat board can be costly.

 

[adelorenzo]

I have a stack of 8-10 paper boxes on my shelf with various proof and work prints in them, organized by project/subject. I tend to cull those out every now and then, for example I probably put 200 prints into the trash last month.

For my "good prints" (which are not that many, alas) I frame and hang them on the wall, bind them into books or mount them and store them in portfolio boxes. I have

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Several forests have been cleared over the years, for this hobby of mine...