Purge

As the Coronavirus has taken a grip on the world, it has allowed me more time to get to those things I have always been wanting to do. I completed one of those ‘to-do list’ tasks today. I did a purge.

One challenge or task I have wanted to do for a long time is to go back through all my pictures and delete those I feel are not any good. I have completed one aspect of that project. I house my picture in Lightroom, on a file on my computer, on an external hard drive (backed up once a month) and finally in Google photos. This week I tackled the first purge of my Lightroom catalog.

Purge simply means to purify or rid of unwanted quality. As I have progressed in my photography I look back a few years and see many of my older photos do not live up to what I determine as “good enough”. I asked myself two simple questions. Does this picture tell a story, and what was I trying to display? If I could not answer either one I deleted the photo.

So here are some numbers to put this into context. Below I am listing the year the photograph took place, how many I started with, and the final number I ended with for each year. I deleted a ton, but feel much better and my hard-drive also thanks me.

2016 from 560 to 393
2017 from 1313 to 291
2018 from 1357 to 587
2019 from 1964 to 811

I deleted over 3000 original shots.

My photography is average to above average at best, but I am improving with each shot. However, much of my older work is sub-par. As Henri Cartier-Bresson once said, “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worse.” I have seen that through this process and strive to be a better photographer each time I shoot. Who knows maybe eventually I will get good at this.

Until next time,

Tim