About a week or so ago, I was transferring wedding images from my card to my computer, and I noticed something. I was rapidly running out of room on my internal hard drive.
Now, before we go any further I just want to give you a quick rundown on the amount of drives I currently have:
– (1) 500 GB Internal Hard Drive
– (2) 1 TB External Hard Drives
– (1) 2 TB External Hard Drive
It sounds like an excessive amount of room for anyone, but it’s really not. At least not for a photographer. You have to think about the following:
At an average event (Wedding, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, etc.) depending on the length of the day, we’ll shoot anywhere from 2500-5000 images. Each image (based on which camera it’s taken with) is anywhere from 16-24 MB per file. Multiply that by the amount of events we shoot every year, then add the various family portraits, birthday parties, headshots, business shoots, and so on. They fill up quickly.
“But Brian” you may be asking yourself…”You don’t use all the pictures you take, why don’t you just delete the ones you don’t use?”
EXCELLENT QUESTION! You get a gold star!
The short answer is this. For major events and business shoots, all the “bad shots” go into a “rejected” folder. I keep them until I know with absolute certainty that the final images have been chosen and it’s safe to let them go into the etherafter.
I promise there’s a reason for all this seemingly boring tech-speak. It’s because ultimately images have to go bye-bye. And that’s when I start to get all deep and introspective.
Most photographers will keep a client’s images for X amount of time after they’ve taken possession of their final deliverables. I keep them for 2 years. When the time comes, I’ll fire off an email or make a phone call asking if they’re interested in purchasing all of their high resolution images. Some people say yes, some people say no, and some people don’t answer at all. As long as I feel I’ve reached out, and given them ample time to respond…the purging begins.
But here’s where the internal dialogue with me begins. It actually starts WAY back to just after the event when I first begin to cull the images. Besides taking out the double shots and out of focus shots, I have to decide which shots won’t make the cut. Which shots aren’t worthy of the client seeing. But my inner self says: “Who the hell are you to choose? What gives you the right to delete a moment forever because there’s something about it you personally don’t like?”
It gets internally ugly sometimes. Feelings gets hurt, and I don’t talk to myself for weeks at a time.
But this takes it to a whole new level. I’m removing from my computer a boy or girl’s foray into the adult ranks. I am deleting the months and years of planning that went into a Bride’s dream wedding. I am deleting all record of it, because those images start and end with me. I’m the doucmentarian! If the client loses the images, there’s no coming back to me later for them. They’re gone forever with a simple click of a button. It’s cold, and it leaves me a little depressed sometimes. Because at the end of the day, I’m deleting one person’s big day for someone else’s. Those memories have to be taken out because I need room. It’s my own (exaggerated) version of “Sophie’s Choice.”
“Brian,” you’re now saying yourself…”this is depressing…why are you telling us this?” Another gold star.
After a shoot last weekend, I was culling the images to send the proofs to the client, and came across this picture…
the almost lost forever image…
Now, I automatically tagged this one for deletion and kept going. From MY perspective his feet were cut off, and it just wasn’t a great image in my mind. Too many cons, not enough pros.
But then I went back to it before it got flushed. There WAS something there, I just had to look a little deeper.
This family is a repeat customer. Because I know them and have had the opportunity to watch the kids grow, I knew the story this image told, and I had almost deleted it.
The brother follows wherever his sister goes. So, there’s her going up the steps “getting older and heading into the world (blue sky)” and he, just starting to find his way in the world, but following closely behind “in the steps” of his big sister. It ended up not only being a favorite of the parents, but their friends as well. It actually brought us in an additional booking.
I had nearly deleted it…because I looked at it from a professional standpoint, and not from an emotional one.
So I’ve made a decision. No more deleting after 2 years. When I’m running out of room on my computer, these images are now just going to be moved to a special external hard drive. I may even start printing them out and putting them in a fireproof safe. I don’t know.
I just feel I need to do something to preserve these special days that people have poured so much love and time into. No matter what kind of event it is.
Because who am I to say “sorry…time’s up”?
As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences – EMAIL US!
About the author: Brian Miller is the owner of Chorus Photography in suburban Philadelphia.
chorus photography 