Cut down in their prime...

[johndc]

I was just working in my darkroom, and I came across a 36exp roll of

some negs from a year or so ago. I quickly held them up to the light

and examined them. I decided that none of them held any interest for

me, and I promptly threw the whole roll in the trash. At that moment

it occured to me that some photographers might regard what I had just

done as a travesty. <B>EVERY ROLL (or sheet) IS SACRED!</B> Even if

you never print a single image, you should treat each roll (or sheet)

as if it was THE roll (or sheet) to end ALL rolls (or sheets).

<P>

Now, film is pretty cheap. Negative sleeves are pretty cheap. But

sometimes I just want some of this film out of my life! I don't want

to deal with it. I don't want to see it again. I don't <i>need</i> to

see it again.

<P>

My question is: am I in the minority here, or do most of you throw

your negs out if you don't like 'em? Is there a grace period, or does

it go right from the final bath to the trash?

<P>

Do you think I'm a monster or a master pragmatist? All opinions

welcomed and encouraged.

[dean_williams]

I don't think every roll is scared, but I rarely throw any negs away. The shots of the floor, or the ones where I accidently tripped the shutter while pointing the lens at my face from 8 inches, yes, they go in the trash, as do test rolls of a target to check a newly repaired camera. But even the crummy shots of people no longer with me become precious after they're gone.

[monsoonphoto.net]

Definitely scared. I scan all my frames for archival -- even the crummmy, blurry, mistriggered ones. That's how obsessed I am.

[jay_de_fehr]

I keep most of the negs I process, partly because my favorite subject matter is my family, and even the shots that don't make the technical grade have personal significance for me, and possibly future for generations of DeFehrs. I don't keep unprintable negs, or test negs, so I guess I'm a moderate.

 

Jay

[chris_waller]

I'm a hoarder by nature, which is probably why I'm primarily a documentary photographer, so I keep every shot I have ever taken. I have folders full of negs and contact sheets, and at last count I had a collect of about fourteen thousand shots.

[msitaraman]

25 years ago, my family and I lost every single slide photograph we had taken since the early 1950s. The thieves mocked us, by calling us on the phone and telling us where we could get the pictures back. We rushed there, but it was a cruel joke...

 

I don't miss those pictures very much now. All things must pass, I've learned, and material attachment is the most pointless of attitudes. It's good to have a sense of history and documents of that history, but it is easy to overdo it.

 

What you are doing is value-free. Keep 'em or toss 'em...

 

IMHO.

[msitaraman]

I should add, in the 25 years since, I've made and kept every single one of 25,000+ shots! ;-)

 

But I'm comforted by the saying that consistency is but the hobgoblin of small minds...

 

:-D

[nikos peri]

I couldn't help snicker a bit as I recognized myself in this question.<p>

I read that at a certain point in his carreer, Henri Cartier Bresson decided to get rid of all those negatives that didn't make the cut. He, for one, cut the survivors into individual frames making his printer's life absolute hell. But he also clearly regretted that severe editing process as with hindsight, he would have liked to revisit some of the discarded negatives.<p>

As a result, I keep the whole roll, even if I know pertinantly well that there isn't one frame worth the celluloid the emulsion sits on. Somehow, in the misguided hope that time will prove that there is a hidden gem in frame 23A of a roll shot of a brick wall for a lens test. Sad, really.

[lee_shively]

I used to toss out negatives with abandon--almost as often as I tossed out slides and transparencies. I was going through a box of old negatives about 3 years ago, tossing out a lot of old stuff, and I came across some film I shot in 1973. Now, I was pretty much a rank beginner in 1973 so I knew there would be nothing of interest on these rolls of film. I looked anyway and was surprised to see some interesting photos. I printed one of the negatives and I've had several positive comments on that photo. It's now on the wall at home. I no longer toss out negatives. In 30 years, even the most currently mundane picture might become an item of interest.

[walter_degroot]

i was once asked to take some photos of a church that has just been " reburbished" for their bulletin, i also included some prints when i gave the pastor the negatives, i printed them to show as much detail as possible, commercial b&w prints then always seemed a bit grayish and milky to me.-

later, i asked how they were recieved and if he had used them' he saif the prints were "too dark" ( they were not) and i asked about the negatives,

Negatives? he said. after i explained my intent so more prints could be made any way they chose, he said" oh those little black things? I threw them away." last time i help out. I left that church soon afterwards.

[andy_buck1]

I have lost more from 30+ years ago than I would have liked. I have too much current work to print, but still wish I had the lost ones. I'm about to exhibit other 30 year old work along side current work.

 

Questlon to Alan Soon: you're scanning negs for archival purposes? Do you seriously think that that technology will be around in 30 years? I keep my negs in an unplugged refrigerator, the cheapest fire-proof safe you can buy. (This was proven in a fire in a lab a few years ago.) Many of us speak of 30+ year old negs. There are negs over 100 years old that are perfectly printable. Who uses Zip drives, a technology all but dead after 4-5 years? Even CD-ROM is on its way out in favor of DVDs! I'm a Luddite and feel secure! <s>

[monsoonphoto.net]

Well, I was using the word "archival" loosely. Scanning it offers me the following: 1) a second

copy of the originals (which are stashed away safely); 2) a chance to search my entire

collection of about 8 years with keywords; 3) and in the process a quick way to send off my

photos to friends.

<P>

I know that digital media won't last forever. But there are benefits, and I'd be a fool to ignore

it completely.

[bruce_watson1]

OK, I'll be the contrarian here, if we are talking art. Clearly this doesn't apply to family snaps and the like.

 

Toss 'em out. The best tool any artist (painter, photographer, musician, whatever) can have is a trash can. Use it well, use it often. Ruthless editing is a good thing.

 

The negatives I made when learning 4x5 were full of flaws. This is part of the learning process. They taught me all I could learn from them. Good prints weren't possible, so there was no point in keeping them. Into the trash can they went.

 

Brahms was right. He burned the music that didn't statisfy his personal definitions of "worthy." We have none of Brahms' juvenile work today, and the world is, I think, better for it.

 

Brahms' juvenile work was bound to be a darn sight better than mine. The world is certainly, without doubt, better off for not having been exposed to the horrors I wrought on film.

 

This processes continues apace. Every trip I make I come back with lots of film to process. If I've done well, maybe one exposure in ten is worth printing. Some that are questionable I'll keep for reevalutation later. The ones where I missed focus on a critical item, ended up with a questionable composition, or had other fatal flaws all end up in the trash can. As it should be.

[rustys pics]

Photography is different from all the other art forms in that it is a precise document of

someone, thing, or place in time.

Keep all of your negatives of anyone living. You will be looking for them someday. If not

you, then perhaps a relative of that person. Case in point;

A couple of years ago a friend gave me a strip of old 127 film he had found at his late

father's house.

His dad never printed these, but held onto them. Now two years later that friend is dead. I

printed one of the pictures of him his Dad took 30 years ago. I set it up at his memorial

service and no one had seen it before. It shows a time, place, and person now gone. If

nothing else it's a mnemonic cue for his friends and relatives. After the service his

sister apologized for not having printed the digital pictures of him from two weeks

earlier.....

 

It amazes me that people who shoot digital hardly ever print the things, places and people

they photograph. That data will be lost one day. But I suppose it's a metphor for the age

that photographs and memories are now just "data" to shuffled away to some oscure and

uncertain hard drive.

Just think what people nearly did with Atget's photographs of Paris. On one level they are

merely old glass plates of old buildings. Obviously they have more value than that cursory

description....<div></div>

[Ian Taylor]

I had a long chat with a National Geo photographer a few months ago. On a big story he will shoot 1000 rolls, for which NG will publish about 20 shots. (He brackets Velvia & Provia "like a madman" in 1/2 stops.) When he gets his film back from the mag he puts a garbage pail at the end of his lightbox and goes through everything. Snips the couple of frames he wants from every roll and chucks the rest. Not even remotely sacred.

[johndc]

Just to be clear, I was referring to my "art" stuff. Typically I will keep a roll if there is a picture of a family member on it or something I think should be documented for the future.

<P>

However, 2 dozen pictures of underexposed night shots from a day trip to NYC? In the trash they go! <i>Wheeee!</i>

[ben conover]

Hi, good thread, I am a beginner and I have had few successful shots, perhpas 2% Anyhow, I have decided not to fire the shutter unless I want to keep the image, that way I can keep them all! Ok, so it may be impractical and a bit optimistic, but I am a little trigger happy otherwise, and since I shoot 69 format I need to slow down some. I keep all photos and negs of people I love, even the crummy photos. Anyhow, I like the content of a photo more than the camera and lens I used for it.

 

Cheers.

[al_kaplan1]

I've got my negatives and matching contact sheets, both 35mm and 120, going back to 1961. I need to go through some of that old stuff again, hopefully with a close friend my age who's a newspaper editor. I'm sure there are a lot of shots I missed on my last go-through, people who were nobodies at the time but made a mark in music, politics, business, hell, maybe even crime!

 

I've shown photos over on the photo.net Leica Forum that I took of, at the time, relatively unknown singers like Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan. Political folks like a Georgia Cracker named Jimmy Carter. Many others. I was younger too, and maybe they weren't the best possible photos, but I'm a much better printer now and there's a good demand for those older photos. You never know when a photograph might become valuable. Keep 'em.

[mike_grigsby]

When I order a a few bricks or packs of film, I always order the archival sheets to put them in.

 

Also, I've found images I didn't care for 20 years ago are pretty cool now... especially self-portraits when I was a pup. Time gives an amazing perspective.