Who keeps all their pictures ?

I have just returned from a holiday in South Africa with six 36 exposure films from my M6. They have all been processed and stored in a folder in strips of 6. BUT I can honestly say that I only truly rate approx 2 pictures on each film as being worth archiving. Is that a normal ratio ? (Of course some of the pics are holiday snaps but I am referring to good pics worth enlarging and framing etc.)

Sounds quite correct. If you have any more film from that trip, I

would advise you to use it at home and not on the next vacation

as RADIATION is CUMULATIVE and mounts up fast in the post

911 world.

Sounds about right if you are having them printed by someone else.

If you are doing it yourself, probably two pictures from the entire

lot is more like it, if you're really good.

Tony, I shoot B&W and keep all my negatives. I don't

necessarily print them all. I have found, that when I look back on

those sheets of negatives, I often see images differently and find

certain shots originally considered "throwaways" now

interesting. Tastes and aesthetics change.

even a single keeper on a roll is something to get excied about. if

you are just beginning an archive, do yourself a favor: start

keeping good records now (including keeping track of where the

keepers on each roll are). too many people reach a point where they

have boxes with hundreds of strips of negatives with no idea where

any of them came from, how they were exposed, and what they contain.

Tony,

 

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Roger has given the best advice of all. Archive!, and keep them all.

I realized it about 20,000 images ago.

 

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On the plus side, paring down that pile of 40,000 unarchived has

created many splendid evenings where my wife and I will review a few

hundred slides and prints of HS, later our dating days, the kids

growing up, vacations, etc., etc. Even running across a few images

of my early girl friends draws a smile from her now.

 

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When the pile is down to nothing, I'll probably get a scanner and

systematically store them electronically. That type of storage gets

cheaper every day.

 

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Best,

 

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Jerry

Tony, I try to purge prints and slides regularly, but keep and file

negs. I just stick a label on them and file them away by date. They

don't take up that much space.

I keep everything, a historian or the author who will write my

biography will be very happy with it :-)

 

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I now have a film scanner and it's really usefull to check which

photo's deserve printing. The nice ones I will print on the computer,

the real nice ones I will enlarge and print in the darkroom.

 

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I returned from Istanbul with 21 films (of 36) and 3 120 films (12

6x6) shot in five days. From the 12 films I have processed sofar I

have about 40 shots worthwhile to have a closer look at. I will be

happy with 8-10 darkroom prints from these 12 and about 15-20 in

total. Will be quite a job as I process everything myself.

 

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Reinier

I agree with Henry. If you have the space save your images. You

will be surprised at how they look to you in a couple of years. I

toss the obviously bad ones, file the few good ones with my "keepers"

and put the rest away in the "for future review" file. I occasionaly

find images I am glad I did not toss on the first cull.

 

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Regards

Steve