What Do I Do With All These Photos I've Taken?

<p>I absolutely love photography as well as using Photoshop to correct or manipulate my photos. I don’t have the best equipment (yet) but I enjoy what I have and take a lot of pictures of anything. I'm not that huge on portraits or wedding photography though, as it seems everyone does that, although I might enjoy candid portraiture.<br /> <br /> I have a dilemma with photography. What do I do with all these pictures I am accumulating on my hard drive, CDs, DVDs, flash drives, etc. In other words what is the actual point in gathering 1,000's of digital photos of various subjects with no end purpose in mind? None of the electronic media you put them on will last forever and may actually crash any day!<br /> <br /> I could print some out and take them to craft shows but I have yet to see a photographer around here make much, if anything, doing that. The photos I take don’t sell on the downloading sites such as Istockphoto. They want posed people or pet pictures more than anything. I am not sure I am up to seeking people out, posing them and getting signed releases continuously. I'm probably more into abstract, landscapes, nature, street and macro photography. <br /> <br /> Surely other photographers out there have the same dilemma I do. What do you do or intend to do with all your accumulated photos, other than simply let them sit on the Hard Drive? Or is that enjoyment enough for you?</p>

<p>I put many of my best pictures on my web site (www.charlesLwebster.com), and print many for gifts and sales.<br>

Don't worry about releases for street portraits unless you plan to use them for advertising.<br>

Don't let those photos "rot" on your hard drive, share them with friends, family, and the world on places like flickr, shutterfly, etc. You don't have to make money from your pictures to get satisfaction from them.<br>

<Chas></p>

<p>You don't have to do anything with them. If you enjoy your photography, that's enough. If you want to show them to others, either post them in the gallery here or get a website and post them there.</p>

<p>There doesn't have to be a point. As a hobby you photograph for the pleasure and internal reward of doing it.</p>

<p>Consider taking a week and shooting something with a specific purpose in mind. See how that changes your prioritizing, and whether or not it makes you a bit more ruthless in getting rid of the less-than-stellar stuff that piles up in the process. <br /><br />BTW, hard disks are cheap. I <em>hope</em> that the only thing between you and losing your work isn't a single crashed drive. Get an external one, back up to it, and remove it from your machine for safety between backup jobs.</p>

<p>It sounds like you may want to do some spring cleaning perhaps and retain only your best images. Posting them to a website is also a very good idea, as they back up their hard drives all the time to prevent a huge loss of data.</p>

<p>Your statement <em>"None of the electronic media you put them on will last forever and may actually crash any day!"</em> just made the case perfectly why film will always be better than digital.</p>

<p>How about 'sharing' your joys (and dissapointments) in pleasant non-judgemental forums like we have here like <a href="../no-words-forum/">(link):No Words </a> , or indeed in the different other forums we have here for a start.</p>

<p>Don't worry Mark you are not alone in this dilemma i was thinking the same thing today, countless images just sitting there collecting dust, i do throw an awful lot away though, a friend of mine seems to keep everything, i just don't see the point of that.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Your statement <em>"None of the electronic media you put them on will last forever and may actually crash any day!"</em> just made the case perfectly why film will always be better than digital.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You can't post about anything these days without someone trying to do film vs digital, can you?</p>

<p>It sounds like you've got a solution that's looking for a problem to solve: You've got made images, but no message. Maybe try some the other way around: make or collect and edit photos centered around a basic message. Then show that message somehow.</p>

<p>" . . . Ken Burns . . . he'll do anything to get people to look at his vacation slides." <br>

--Stephen Colbert, <em>The Colbert Report.</em> </p>

<p>Paper doesn't last for ever. Film doesn't last forever. At some point the whole universe will achieve total entropy and be nothing but emptiness filled with dust (<a href="

). [Happy New Year, by the way].</p>

<p>Back up on any medium, film included, is a constant cycle that has to be done like Mayor Daley the Elder's injunction about voting in Chicago -- "do it early and often." Get ever bigger hard drives and make DVD backups regularly, etc.</p>

<p>Just be glad your hobby isn't furniture carpentry.</p>

<p>Mark, you have touched on a good point that I have wrestled with myself. Huge numbers of still images are being uploaded every second to the internet. Numbers in the several thousand image uploads per second to some of the photosharing sites have been reported. If only a small fraction of these are decent quality images, that still means that there are huge numbers of excellent photos available of almost any conceivable subject. Thus, if your goal is to produce better quality or more unique images than the many already freely available, you will have a very steep hill to climb.</p>

<p>Bob Atkins correctly stated that an important motivation for many photographers is the pleasure of the activity itself and internal reward. However, I sense that you are already aware of this and are looking for additional motivation through utility of your work as perceived by others.</p>

<p>For me, the answer is to produce images that someone really wants and very few other people are in a position to get. Photography as a profession, photography related to your family, and photography related to your non-photographic work are probably the most obvious ways for most of us to find utility in our photography.</p>

<p>If you were interested in photography as a profession, I suspect you would have asked directly about this. In addition, since there are already many threads on photo.net on this topic, so I'll pass on discussing this as a motivator in this thread.</p>

<p>With respect to doing photography related to your non-photographic work, I've been very fortunate in that I've been able to morph a small part of my "day job" into shooting images for my employer. I found it extremely rewarding to know that in the most recent glossy outreach / publicity brochure from my company (over 10k copies printed), over half of the 60 or 70 images in it were mine. Talk about feeling useful: Basically, my employer feels confident that my photos will increase the visibility / profitability of my institution more than photos from other photographers, stock photos, etc.. You might try for something like this as well.</p>

<p>In the same category, I would also place shooting photos (on spec) of your non-photographic hobbies, passions, interests (eg, sports, activism, community events, etc.) that stand a reasonable chance of getting published. It's very rewarding to see some of your event photos in the local news, some of your high school sports and theater photos occupying a permanent place on the HS website, etc. Some of these shots can even lead to paid photographic gigs. For example, I never imagined that I would get paid to shoot photos for a visiting group of British soccer coaches, but some on-spec shots I took of a local HS soccer game led to this gig.</p>

<p>WRT my personal photography, documenting my family and friends is clearly something that no one else is in a position to do (at least at a reasonable quality level) and I find very rewarding. Too many times to remember I have been asked for photos when someone has died. In several cases, I took the very last photo of that person.</p>

<p>So, Mark, even if there are 5 zillion uploads per second to Flickr, I think you can still find ways towards utility and uniqueness in your photography.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>As a hobby, for me photography is no different than fishing or sport....and satisfying images are like little trophies of the picture finding process...what you make of these images is something different depending on your intent and ambition...since you ask I guess you're looking for ideas....why not start to show your images to a wider audience like here or elsewere...and then you'll start to see the reactions and exchanges...</p>

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=1841065">JDM von Weinberg</a> , Dec 29, 2009; 02:54 p.m., wrote:<br>

<em>"At some point the whole universe will achieve total entropy and be nothing but emptiness filled with dust."</em></p>

<p>One or two threads on the "Philosophy of Photography" forum seem to be in the vanguard.</p>

<p>(Just kidding.)</p>

<p>Ernest:<br>

I couldn't agree more about the entropy vanguard status of certain forums (a?). I finally had to take philosophy off my "Unified" list, since I could never resist rising to the bait, and thus gaining the dislike of my fellow P.netters (along the lines of "if you don't like it here, just go away and let us play" - so I did, to everyone's greater joy). I wonder: "If a Philosophy of Photography Forum post is made in the forum, and I don't know it exists, does it exist?" OR "Am I just a figment of Bob Atkins's imagination?"</p>

<p><strong>OR "Am I just a figment of Bob Atkins's imagination?"</strong></p>

<p>Only Bob knows<strong>........<br /> </strong></p>

<p><strong><br /> </strong></p>

<p><strong><br /> </strong></p>

 

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=1841065">JDM von Weinberg</a> , Dec 29, 2009; 03:46 p.m., wrote:</p>

 

<p><em>"I wonder: "If a Philosophy of Photography Forum post is made in the forum, and I don't know it exists, does it exist?" OR "Am I just a figment of Bob Atkins's imagination?"</em></p>

 

<p>Good question, JDM.</p>

<p>What is the sound of one turtle snapping?</p>

<p>"just made the case perfectly why film will always be better than digital." Please Scott, spare us responding to why your comment was so silly or start another post so we can tell you. </p>

<p>Mark, you've received some responses that offer good practical advice. Here is something else to consider.<br>

The camera is a tool to explore the wonder of life. The lens is an excuse to see deeply, to feel deeply and to satisfy curiosity. It's a tool of creative expression. Despite all the equipment discussions, folks wanting to make money and, god help me, all the equipment discussions, at the end of the day photography is about <em>making</em> images. For me, that's the joy of photography. All the learning, looking, waiting, studying, money, travel, hiking, sweating all cumulate in one amazing moment of the shutters release. <strong>That</strong> moment of crystalization is my greatest joy in photography. An unbeatable high thats better than any drug. Everything before is simply preparation and everything after is post production. Both are needed for fine craft but they are more like work for me.<br>

But like a junkie needing a fix, I endure the work at both ends to experience those few brief moments when, for a fraction of a second, I am at once, an artist, a scientist, an explorer, a humble servent, a conduit to the universe. No matter what you decide to do with your images, remember photography is a journey not a destination. Enjoy the trip. Your pictures merely show the path you've taken. </p>

<p>delete everything and start over. i do this every other year. In my nightmares of computers crashing, the house flooding or burning, etc... I have both digital and film, the film way outlast the digital so long as it doesnt get burned or wet... The digital, who knows. So long as the both make it through my lifetime that will be good enough, i wont care afterwards... even if its a nice thought of perhaps some worthwhile image, at some point being taken, actually outliving me.</p>

<p>I'm pretty much in the same situation as you are. There's a bunch of photos on my harddrive which are just taking up space. I try to go back every now and then to delete the ones that doesn't please me anymore. A few of the pictures I like goes on my site, which I share with two good friends. This is just for us to show photos for friends and family.<br>

 <br>

Apart from that I also got my own photography book printed as a highschool project. This is something that I personally found satisfying, just to be creating something that's yours which you'll be able to hold in your hands and say "I did this". A few copies was also done as to give to friends and family. My school also bought one copy to show up as an example of what future student can do as a project. This gave me the same feeling of usefulness Tom Mann talked about.<br>

 <br>

Right now I'm thinking about getting some bigger copies printed, just to have laying around the house. Partly to give me that "I did this"-feeling, partly to show of ;)</p>

<p>Your responses have been inspiring. I even trekked up to my attic "studio" this afternoon to take some close-ups! Thanks for helping.<br /> <br /> I do back up my photos every so often onto a separate hard drive. But of course, even that one may fail some day. It is never ending. As one said here, I guess I shouldn’t worry what happens to my photos after I die, and should just enjoy it during my life. Only, I am also a genealogist in my other hobby, so it is hard for me to think that way! I have trouble with the inevitable decline or disappearance of material things that may have some mental value eventually. I do try to only keep my best photos so that helps in the management of this beast. I know many who keep every photo they take!<br /> <br /> Probably for me the most satisfaction would be gained by having photos either published somewhere or hanging in someone's home or business. A personal website is a good idea. I do have a few of my pieces hanging in my own house. Will my physical works simply end up at The Salvation Army when I die? So far my kids aren't into it. I honestly don't care if I make one scent off of photography. Very few photographers make a living at it, similar to very few writers making a living at their craft. I have backed up my personal type photos on a 300 year gold CD. The genealogist coming out in me. But the other types I was not sure what to do with.<br /> <br /> I suppose the satisfaction for many of us is going out and getting NEW photos! Between that and buying new equipment, that drives me to keep going. Thanks for your ideas, which helped a lot.</p>

<p>I did get an external drive that I loaded through photoshop. It started clicking and would not turn on.<br>

There were about 8,000 photos on there. Most I did save to disc but not all.</p>

<p>Maybe if <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/30/national-geographic-shoves-every-morsel-of-its-collection-onto-1/">National Geographic has learned how to edit</a>, we should too. I know for sure I need to go through and thin the ranks!</p>

<p>what do you do with your all your pics? the key word is "all". are you doing a sort when you get back to the pc? and by a sort i mean a RUTHLESS RPT RUTHLESS RPT RUTHLESS sort and then deleting the duds. a dud is ANY pic that has major flaws in exposure and wb. a dud is any pic in which the composition or framing lacks major correct elements, OR you have another pic that has these elements done correctly. i have throw out or deleted thousands of pics that have nothing really wrong with them, BUT i at the same time have another image just as good that expresses the scene in a better way. i have pitched ten of thousands of slides, and an awful lot of digital imsages. and not all of these were bad, just that others were better of the same thing. i have been shooting with a slr/dslr since 1970. for 32 yrs i shot slides. i have have scanned some of the slides into the pc, about 10-20% of the total. right now after 32yrs of slide shooting and 8yrs of digital shooting i have 8925 images in my primary picture folder. that is 8925 images for 40yrs of shooting. all the rest were either not scanned in, and if slides pitched, or if digital deleted.<br>

i am only keeping what i believe has real merit. i by this time know one giant fact-i will be shooting more pictures. it is very easy to fill up a hdr drv unless the user makes sure that what is keep has some very good qualities. and the user is not just keeping the image for the sake of keepimng it and just cannot part with it, even though there are other like it.</p>

<p>

<p>I think what you do with your photos will depend a lot of why you are taking photos in the first place. For me I mostly take photos to document the people, events and places of my life. As I have gotten older I has come to appreciate the photos that bring back memories more then the photos of things like waterfalls and mountains. These photos are do not have a large value at the time I take them, but in 10 to 20 years they gain a lot of value to me as well as others. Sometimes you don’t even need to wait 10 years for a photo to become interesting. I took a number of wide angle panoramic shots of our canoe club just a few years ago, the club as changed a lot in just the last few years and people have gotten a real kick looking at what it look like even 5 years ago.<br>

　<br>

What I do with my photos is to keep them, not throwing out any but the ones that simply did not come out. I keep them stored by date and I have a system when I can use index photos to quickly find events, such as friends visiting from out of state or something as simple as going to a restaurant in town.<br>

　<br>

Shooting with a digital camera make a large difference in how I shot and what I do with the photos. The photos are all date stamped in the exif field so it is easy to arrange by date. The photos are close to free to take so I take far more thing things that I did not take when I was shooting film, which looking back at my photos is a very good thing. As an example I have no photos of my coworker when I was shooting film, but I have a lot of photos of my coworkers once I start to shoot with a digital camera. It would have been nice to have photos from years ago of the people I worked with and the jobs I worked on.<br>

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I also put a lot of my photos up on web sites that deal with activities that I am involved with and a handful of my photos end up on the sports page of the local paper. I am also pretty free at giving photos to people who ask for them, when the photo is of interest to them.</p>

</p>