How many keepers do you get out of all the photos you take

<p>As a young film photographer I used to read about National Geographic photographers using 400 rolls of film on assignment in order to get the 3 photos appearing in an article. Friends and I used to remark that any person can take 400 rolls of film and get 3 great shots! We were jealous that we could only afford 1 roll a week and so had to try as hard as we could to get a few great shots on each roll. So for people like us, DSLR are a godsend. I wonder how many photos the NG photographers take now to get their 3 or 4 National Geographic published photos.<br>

Even today I try to not take so many photos but rather to take good photos with the ones I take. So, if you were to go on a one day outing anywhere and you may sell and/or keep some of the photos you take, how many photos would you normally take, and how many "keepers" are you hoping to get out of that?</p>

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<p>Friends and I used to remark that any person can take 400 rolls of film and get 3 great shots!</p>

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<p>I don't buy that premise or the 400 roll ratio story,sorry. A keeper likely meant one selected by a photo editor for publication out of the lot submitted. Same goes for many of us..film still was cheaper than time and effort and opportunity cost. Never did the stats or was too darn rich:-)</p>

<p>The problem with statements like that, 400 rolls for 3 images, is that it totally misses the point. The point being that the magazine may only have room for 3 images. The great part for the photographer is that the magazine pays for shooting all of it, usually at a rate that makes the photographer a handsome sum per roll, and they can sell the other images to whoever they wish! ( I would have made about $6000 profit or so if I shot that many rolls in addition to my creative fee!)</p>

<p>When I have shot for magazines, I have to say that generally I get more shots used per roll shot than this, but I learned a long time ago that what the magazine finds important to illustrate their article is not generally what I feel are the best images. So you shoot and cover all aspects of the assignment, not just what you think is going to be a great shot.</p>

<p>I don't ever look at a "success" rate or only shoot great photographs when I shoot personally. That is a sure way to remain pretty ordinary in your work. The genius shots are many times those you are drawn to but don't know why, you shoot them and later there is the WOW moment. In my personal work, I generally shoot one piece of film per shot (large format) and I can tell you almost without exception, that when I started out and shot more because I thought there was a great shot there, it never saw the light of the enlarger or scanner--except when I proofed it.</p>

<p>Shooting only great shots is a misnomer, shoot what you are attracted to and what you find interesting even if not great. Film/digital is the cheapest part of what you do and yet the most important!</p>

<p>And don't throw away any image unless it is technically really crap. In digital it is so easy to hit the delete key, but with film, I have discovered incredible images years later. In one case, it was 4 years after I shot the image and it became the basis for an entire series!</p>

<p> The percentage of keepers is irrelevant. The number and quality of keepers is. National Geographic has a lot of concerns besides "a good picture". They need pictures that tell the story clearly and in concert with the text. One's idea of a "keeper" is another's reject. This is one of those questions that has no clear answer. If you're gleaning over one keeper out of 300 or so exposures (over years), either you've set the bar woefully low, or, you're one of the best photographers that ever lived. Unless you're a wedding or sports photographer, where the action is somewhat predictable, and the bar isn't as high as it is in the art world. Lots of variables in this.</p>

<p>Robert Frank averaged about 1:324 keepers with The Americans. On the other hand, Bill Eggleston prints almost everything he shoots. Your mileage will vary.</p>

<p> Nobody, aside from historians, cares how you got the picture, only that you got it.</p>

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<p>I "keep" virtually all. If I bother, I might cull the occasional shot's of feets, etcetera, that's about it.</p>

<p>I recently came across a film cannister with a few dozen unmounted slide frames. I'd put them away decades back. The only common denominator I could see was that some of them were near duplicates of other shots in a series. But there were some <em>gems</em>. With hindsight I can't believe how shortsighted I was, LOL.</p>

<p>I recently went to the beach and shot 178 frames, I kept 3. A couple of months ago I went to a family outing and shot about 200 frames, I kept about 180. But, I usually don't bracket and change aperture for DOF at family outings. On my beach outing I was after 1 image that I had previsulized and most of those shots were just wainting for the right time and trying compositions. Here is 1 of 178.</p><div></div>

<p>My percentage of keepers varies on how familiar I am with the subject type and lighting situations. I was dabbling in macro yesterday, mainly just playing around since I don't have a dedicated macro lens. Out of 88 shots I had 4 "keepers," 1 of which I would consider "good." A "keeper" for me is anything that is good enough to post on the web. The "Good Ones" are the ones that I will show off to my friends. The last time I went out for a dedicated shoot, out of 100 or so shots, I had about 8 keepers 3-4 good ones. That's about average for me. Sometimes, though, I go out and don't come back with anything I like. </p>

<p>The number of keepers I get depends on the type of shooting I'm doing, the kind of environment I'm working in, and (especially) how strictly I define "keeper." A simple number is meaningless.</p>

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<p>Friends and I used to remark that any person can take 400 rolls of film and get 3 great shots!</p>

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<p>I see this sentiment expressed fairly often, but it seems it never comes from people who actually do produce great shots. Getting a great photo <strong>isn't</strong> like throwing a thousand darts at a dartboard and maybe hitting a bullseye a few times. The overwhelming majority of great photos are not stationary targets that you might hit by shooting at them again and again and again. It's more like trying to hit the bullseye on a dartboard that appears intermittently, for a second or so at time, in a wide variety of places.</p>

 

<p>Travel photos, about 10%. Family gatherings, maybe 20%. Youth sports, about 5%. I'm slowly improving, and I cull ruthlessly. It's funny though -- some compositions that look good on the camera LCD don't look good as prints, and vice versa. Dunno exactly why.</p>

I think a better question might be how many do you throw away at first look. I take mostly 2X2 transparencies, they don't take up much space, so unless they are really bad they go back in the box and under the bed. If somebody asks "How was your trip?" then I might scan the 4 or 5 I like best for email. When space gets cramped under the bed I look through the oldest ones and throw away maybe 2/3 to 3/4. But I may also find a few hidden jewels or family/friends/girlfriends shots that are meaningful now. But nothing is forever so they will all be gone in the end.

<p>100% of mine are keepers (because I keep them all). Storage is cheap, especially electronic storage.</p>

<p>I have been glad of that as new (digital) technology made something more like a silk purse out of some old sow's ears slides that I kept. In addition, I find it pays to go back sometimes and look at the "seconds". As time goes by, and my own skills and taste change, I sometimes find more interest in the alternatives than the one I chose to project the first time around.</p>

<p>The old timers shot a lot, not so they could cull out the few good ones, but for the reasons already discussed. In cases where we can see what's what, most of the ones <em>not</em> chosen look much better than some tyro's best shots.</p>

<p>Well technically I keep them all since I store all my film negatives and positives. That said, what I can to keep is probably closer to 40%. Of those I probably really like maybe 25% of what I scan. I certainly like all of the ones I bother to scan, but only about a quarter of those I consider really great.<br>

Of that if I tried to sell my pictures I doubt 1 in 10 of the ones I really like would actually sell. I do a lot of family photography with a 2yr old son and wonderful wife.</p>

<p>With film I probably get one or two per roll worth printing that wouldn't embarrass me to be seen. With digital my technique goes to hell. With candids I shoot fairly indiscriminately, hundreds, sometimes thousands per session. But I'm only hoping to get a few perfect moments or nuances of expressions and it doesn't bother me to delete the rest.</p>

<p>One of the outstanding examples of making each shot count was run in the Nov. 1997 Nat. Geo, It is called "North Woods Journal" by Jim Brandenburg in which he takes one shot a day for the 90 days of winter. Some good nature photography.<br>

Brandenburg later published a book called "Looking for Summer" in which he tried the same approach and that I feel is nowhere near the quality of work of the winter photos. If you can dig these up take a look and see what you think.</p>

<p>Very good answers and what I was looking for. The reason I actually asked was because my wife keeps yelling at me for 1. Not taking enough photos of the places we go, 2. For not keeping all of the photos I take. Of course she is in it more for memories and I am in it to get the best photos I can that tell the story of the place or people. I pitch the ones I don't think meet my criteria, which ends up being anywhere from 50% to 90%. I thought maybe I was in error for throwing out so many photos. I threw in the National Geographic bit because I was interested in seeing what comments it would create and becasue I often did wonder what happened to all the extra photos that came from an NG shoot (knowing they had to be good photos).<br>

When I go somewhere with my camera I try to take photos of every nuance of the place or subject, every crack, every object, every twig that seems like it may give a feel to the subject. Many of them simply don't turn out as artistic or meaningful as I would have liked so I delete them when I get home since I am not sure what else to do with them. Of course I wouldn't have done that in the film days.</p>

<p>Sometimes I believe it is useful to operate a bit like the large format photographer, whose film is limited on any outing. Nice thing about digital is that you can "waste" many exposures and in a shorter time frame than available to the LF photographer. My film medium format camera is sometimes used when the accompanying digital camera and its exposures clarify in my mind what I am looking for. It's maybe not the best approach, but like the LF case, it allows lesser numbers of film exposures in the same situation and my keeper rate tends to increase.</p>

<p>It does have the downside of making my film exposures a bit too pre-determined. Sometimes I prefer going out with only the film camera and accepting to control less easily what is happening.</p>

<p>Another thing I find is that my keeper rate increases over time, with the same developed rolls of film. On re-appraisal, some previously put aside images speak a little differently than when first viewed, or I may be (in B&W film use) thinking a bit differently about how I might print those negatives, and what sort of character I should try to give them.</p>

<p>" Of course I wouldn't have done that in the film days." Exactly, and that is one of the issues with digital that I see. Most of us who shot film probably have everything we ever shot in our files and those take up much more room than a digital file and were generally more costly to preserve.</p>

<p>If you shoot commercially, sure, there are a lot of outtakes and in most cases not worth saving--they had a purpose, one did it best and the rest--what good are they unless it was an open assignment like editorial or shooting landscape sort of things where the client makes a limited number of picks(love those assignments!).</p>

<p>Personal work is different. We shoot things and, as I said above, we might not see the genius until later. We may also get better at post or some new technology might come along that will allow us to realize what the image really did offer. I have a 4x5 sheet of film, made pre digital, which ended up over exposed and way too contrasty. I couldn't get it to print to save my life and I am a master printer. Then there was digital and I got a high end scanner--voila, I could finally get a print that I envisioned from the beginning. I could have tossed it, because current technology couldn't handle it and so it was a bust, but I didn't.</p>

<p>The other thing with keeping images is that what seems pedantic or ordinary today might be important to you later. Maybe you start to see that you are shooting similar shots all over the country/world, ones that seem unimportant but when taken as a whole tell a story worth telling. We don't see those upfront, but as we see it repeat over and over in our work, we will regret throwing away those made earlier--just another way our genius is seen later!</p>

<p>As said by others, storage is cheap and getting cheaper and smaller all the time. I throw away only a few things. Ones that were clearly wrong--like hitting the shutter before you focused --then only if it is really lacking in content--or the duplicates I make in brackets or the "safe" duplicate to be sure focus was right on. Otherwise today's "clunkers" are not tossed.</p>

<p>". . . National Geographic photographers using 400 rolls of film on assignment in order to get the 3 photos appearing in an article . . ."</p>

<p>If it was a 24 exposure roll, at 400 rolls, that's 9600. At 36 exposures per roll, that would have been 14,400. Split the difference to cover failures and odd mistakes, that's a 3 in 12,000 ratio.</p>

<p>3:12,000.</p>

<p>Before we get all hot and heavy about how we can seem to meet a success ratio of 3:12,000, let's apply those standards fairly to our own work. How many of us have had 3 photos in National Geographic print publications? Some Photo-netters have made it (not me), but must of us have not. So, by that same standard, we have achieved a <strong>zero:12,000</strong> rate of success.</p>

<p>The level of scrutiny those photographers are going to have to meet to get a crack at 3:12,000 is much higher than what we'd individually deem as "keeper" or not. The sheer demand and competition of getting in to that exclusive group of people is going to be enough to require some arbitrary decisions from the start. A lot of those decisions may have nothing to do with an individual "good" photo or not. There's some other stuff in there.</p>

<p>At some point, the pool of people to choose from probably got narrowed down to a big group of everyone who was consistently doing well, and from there they probably picked who they wanted. That's-a life.</p>

<p>What I call a keeper over here is simply not going to hit National Geographic or Getty or Magnum Photos unless some lightning strike lottery success occurs. Odds on being struck by lightning are something like 1:72 million; which is about how many competitors each one of those brand name photographers have, in some sense. We can do well, but that doesn't mean that we're going to make the cut on the brand name publications. It's just not reasonable.</p>

<p>Besides, for all I know, one day they'll wish they had picked me up. When Ansel Adams was doing what he did most every day, there's a fair amount of suggestion that the rest of the world regarded him as ignorable. We just don't have any kind of perfect logic that's going to relate frame-by-frame success with profit and publication success in the long term.</p>

<p>We can make ourselves available to be struck by lightning, and we can do everything we can frame by frame to get struck by lightning, but that doesn't mean lightning strike success is going to come around based on what we think about our own stuff. At some level, it's beyond our individual control, and that's just how it goes.</p>

<p>My common, conservative, bare minimum keeper ratio is about 15 to 30 minutes investment into a photo (before camera, not counting labs). I can do about four good photos in an hour's worth of behind the camera time.</p>

<p>Really good photos? About one every five to ten years. Good sets of photos, series or half-series, several of those per year.</p>

<p>Photos for one day? Four. On a good day.</p>

<p>I'd promise or expect no better than a max of three photos in one day.</p>

<p>It'd take me about a month to do one series. I would not want to work on a topic for more than three months, because then the edge drops off the curiosity. Three months : thirty six pictures would be the max.</p>

<p>Don't forget about all of the days "BOLO", where you score a big, fat nothing as a result of the field time. </p>

<p>Just this past week I've shot around 150 raw images with my Pentax K100D DSLR. It's taken me several days to cull it down to about 60 and I'm still having second thoughts on what to keep.</p>

<p>So far it's taken me about a year to throw away quite a few of the thousand or so images both jpeg and raw I've accumulated in the four years I've had the Pentax. And I'm still throwing away more as we speak.</p>

<p>The curse of digital I guess where it's almost impossible to decide which image is bad since they generally all look good.</p>

<p><em>I used to read about National Geographic photographers using 400 rolls of film on assignment in order to get the 3 photos appearing in an article. </em></p>

<p>B.S. I never heard nor read that.<br>

I screw up maybe 2% of the photos I take. The other 98% are not all art but are keepers. I shoot 9,000 - 13,000 images/year (not all that much for a PN member).</p>

<p>Seeing a high failure rate happen is bad news, but I'm not so sure a high success rate is an indicator of success.</p>

<p>If you can get the picture fundamentals done right, consistently, at will, then I think it's time to move on to other sets of standards. We probably all had that beginner phase when we saw ourselves making hundreds of photos that were headed for the garbage. Sometimes we still do. Then, it's time to hit the reset and get back to basics.</p>

<p>Last summer, I spent 10 days in Vegas, Bryce, Zion, and the Grand Canyon. Shot upwards of 1,000 photos. After editing pared that down to about 450, then after BRUTAL editing, about 90. So I kept maybe 100 out of nearly 1,000, about 10%. But I shoot for exhibition in galleries, and I have a show coming up in June, and 3 of those (out of about 25) are in the show.</p>

<p>So it kind of depends on your definition of "keeper". In my case, of the 90 I kept, probably half were "I was at the Grand Canyon and here's the proof!" related, and the other half stuff I'd consider for exhibition. </p>

<p>I just wish that people wouldn't post everything they keep!</p>