Is it worth keeping negatives you have rejected?

[Sirius Glass]

If I cut out individual negatives, my 35mm PrintFile sheet would look like Swiss cheese. [Not really, but you get the idea]

 

[bsdunek]

i don' t get rid of any of my negatives ..
sometimes it takes 30 or 40 years to
see what you saw when you depressed the shutter ..

+2

 

[darkosaric]

i don' t get rid of any of my negatives ..
sometimes it takes 30 or 40 years to
see what you saw when you depressed the shutter ..

Amen.

 

[Bob Carnie]

No - I think trashing old work is a bad idea, years from now you may disagree with your earlier assessment of the work. Photographers IMO are bad editors of their own work,they are too close, I have nature work that I thought would never see the light of day, but now that I am making small tri colours over pd these nature images are perfect.

I have about 6 ring binders full of 35mm negatives, but perhaps less than 10% I consider worth printing. I am considering scrapping the other 90%. Would others agree? Or is there any reason to keep the trash?

 

[Bob Carnie]

This is what I do to isolate the winners.

If I cut out individual negatives, my 35mm PrintFile sheet would look like Swiss cheese. [Not really, but you get the idea]

 

[StephenT]

Keep 'em.

 

[WetMogwai]

I keep everything that isn't an obviously unusable negative.

When I shot my first 4x5 portrait, I hated it. The negative looked terrible. I didn't like the scan either. Then, a few years later, I tried printing it for the first time in Palladium. It is now one of my favorite photos that I've ever shot. If I had discarded it when I decided I didn't like it, I would have lost a real gem.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I would keep them. What harm will it do? A big problem for me is when I shoot, I have a preconceived notion of how the shot should look like. I tend to reject some shots and after not looking at them for a long while, I come back with fresh eyes and some of those rejects look wonderful. They're short of like bastard children change after time. The change is really the perception of the parent. Just like bastard children, they're your creation.

 

[Paul Howell]

I keep all of my personal negatives and proof sheets in blinders and filed in a filing cabinets, work prints I do sort every few months and only keep the prints that have potential, still have boxes of stuff I intend to print when I retire. What I don't have are the negatives I shot as an Air Force photographer and when I worked for the wires.

 

[MartinP]

Don't keep the roll where you forgot to turn off the motor-drive before a trip, and a bump in the road gave you a roll of nothingness. Rolls or sheets for shutter/camera/developer testing are probably not so interesting either, but a set of negs takes up barely the same volume as a couple of sheets of copier paper.

Time will change what is interesting - that shot of the dog and ball in the street, which you rejected because the ball was hidden behind the dog? That will be interesting for someone a few decades later, when the street has been turned in to a carpark and in turn had a huge shopping centre built on top. The extra work is labelling who/what/why/where/when, with emphasis on the where and when perhaps. Either label stuff, or leave specific instructions that everything is to be burned without sorting it out, after your death.

Time also affects family (if you have one) requirements too. Negs of a family party are interesting in a different way after a few decades.

 

[railwayman3]

I was told by an acquaintance who works in local TV news that the station retains all finished news film/video reports, however ephemeral or trivial, since they take the view that you never know what might become interesting or valuable again in the future. He mentioned the number of documentary makers who approach them for unlikely stuff from 30-40 years ago.

Not saying we keep all our failures though !

 

[SanMiguel]

i don' t get rid of any of my negatives ..
sometimes it takes 30 or 40 years to
see what you saw when you depressed the shutter ..

+1

Some of the negs I value most now I thought were rubbish 35 years ago. Times change, your perception of what is good/bad will change too. And they dont take up a lot of room...biggest problem is proper cataloging so you can find what you are looking for easily.
Michael

 

[John Bragg]

It is down to personal choice, but I keep all mine. I see them as of potential historical value if only to step back in time. People we have lost and our fading youth reside in those precious moments in time.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Not saying we keep all our failures though !

My only failing is I am so humble that I can hardly stand it.

 

[oscroft]

I think about all those photos shot generations ago that have been discarded, lost, destroyed, and I wonder how many of them would be treasured by people today. That's one of the reasons I never throw away negatives, that I have no idea who might want them after I've gone - I'd love to have all my Dad's negs, and all my Granddad's and so on.

Another reason, which people have already suggested, is that I've no way of knowing if something I don't want now might become important in the future, and that has actually happened to me - I found some shots of a part of town that was demolished 30 years ago, and they're definitely of historical interest now (despite having no artistic merit and no desirability at the time).

The cost of storage is not negligible, but I can easily afford a new binder and sleeves once a year and a new shelf every decade.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Heck when I die I am taking all the slides and negatives with me. Even the bad shots.

 

[dpurdy]

Your vision changes. What excites you changes. I have several images that at first seemed complete failures but years later I came to really value.
That said, I have filled a couple of 30 gallon trash cans with my reject negs.
Dennis

 

[analoguey]

I haven't deleted Digital files. Negatives? Of course, I'll keep them.

You never know when you might find them useful or what idea it may spawn in you later on.

Also, I have found that sometimes, what I think as 'discards' actually interests other ppl.

sent from tapatalk

 

[removed account4]

i have a box of poorly processed, poorly exposed extremely thin uncut negatives i save for printing exercises.
nothing quite beats being able to print anything you stick in your enlarger

 

[BrianShaw]

I generally save almost everything... but mostly out of laziness. I dislike sorting and labeling and organizing.

Some I do throw out -- poorly processed, poorly exposed extremely thin -- if I ever need one I can make any of those again with the greatest of ease.

 

[gliderbee]

Remember that picture of Bill Clinton giving Monica Luwinsky a hug in tempore non suspecto ? I've read somewhere the photographer saying he would have deleted it if it had been taken with a digital camera ... One never knows ...

Stefan

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

 

[Sirius Glass]

I haven't deleted Digital files. Negatives? Of course, I'll keep them.

I do not take digital photographs so I have no digital photographic files to save nor to delete.

 

[removed account4]

I haven't deleted Digital files. Negatives? Of course, I'll keep them.

You never know when you might find them useful or what idea it may spawn in you later on.

Also, I have found that sometimes, what I think as 'discards' actually interests other ppl.

sent from tapatalk

i'll deleate some digital files, i still keep a lot of them,
... i think my hard drive has around close to 18K of them
(including skaaans of films + papers) and that doesn't count
the stuff on the terabyte drive ...

 

[Steve Roberts]

Unless you're an extremely prolific photographer, how much space do your ringbound negs take up compared to, say, your washing machine, hi-fi, sofa, etc.? I'd have to be really desperate for space before I dumped a single negative (except possibly for test strips or experimental films). As well as that, there is the issue of how you handle a strip of six 35mm negs containing one good shot and five duffers.
Steve

 

[Pat Erson]

I'm currently scanning pix I made in 1999. Most of it is stuff I considered "awful" back then.

So yes I think you should keep everything you have.