Viewing your work immediately vs monthes later.

[HSakols]

Do you ever find that you become more discerning about your images when you view them months later rather than immediately.  When I print, I always find that I'm printing work that is usually months if not a year old.  In this day and age of immediate images and prints do you find you do a better job editing your work after say six months after taking them?   

[petermfiore]

I often go back several years and find the images have changed...or rather I'm looking at older images with avery different eye. New ideas and concerns.

Peter

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Definitely.

I generally pick what I think are the "best" ones from a shoot to process as soon as I have time. But often, looking back at the selection months or years later I see that I completely skipped over better shots the first time around.

I generally put new prints up on a viewing shelf and leave them for a few weeks before deciding how much I like them. Many that I thought looked great at the time of printing wear out their welcome after just a few days.

Perhaps, like a fine wine, an image has to age properly. "We will serve no print before its time!"

[Rand47]

Even in the short term, I'll find that after working on an image, if I let it "sit" for a day or two and then go back to the file with fresh eyes, I'll often take a different tack on processing.  And then when I finally print, I'll leave it hang on my large magnetic panels for a week or two and "live" with what I've done.   Some images improve with time (my perception of them, that is) and some head for the dust bin.

Rand

[stamper]

When you look at an image immediately after you have captured it then you have an emotional attachment to it especially if you think you have a winner. Days,weeks or months later the emotion has faded and you become more objective. I sometimes process a winner straight away but leaving it has it benefits. If you show the image to someone they won't have had an emotional attachment and they are likely to disagree as to how good the image is.

[Rob C]

I got used to quick editing because of my work. There never was time for second guesses. It was often clients who picked the wrong shots, but they still had to be offered them or they'd think I'd just gone on holiday again... (that should ring a bell in some dark heart).

Picking thirteen images for a calendar was easy after a week or two-week shoot. But offering the money-man only thirteen images wouldn't have gone down very well at all.

I think I still 'work' like that for myself: I look at a lot of things through the camera that I don't shoot. But usually, I do end up working up all that I shoot. Very occasionally I stop halfway through processing and say forget it: it sucks, don't waste more of your time on the mother. In truth, that's more often due to technical reasons: I love black/white a lot more than I care for colour, though some stuff can only live in colour, of course. But, doing a conversion sometimes just looks shitty: some tones of digital grey won't translate properly, especially in faces, and though it may be my shortcoming as a PS user, it makes no difference: in the situation, it doesn't fly. So it dies.

But as to whether others dig it nor not: as long as I like it, that's it. I have no interest in post-mortems and second-guesses from people who were not in the moment and cannot see through my eyes anyway. A recent case of that, with one of Russ's shots of neo- (and possibly fake) vagrants (her soles were relatively clean) illustrated perfectly the pointlessness of second-guessing.

If you are in photography for yourself, please yourself: you are the one who counts, not some unknown guy with a cup of cold tea.

Rob

[HSakols]

I find that I need time to look at my images.  At least for me part of the process is spending time repeatedly viewing and organizing my best work.  I'm always amazed how the folks at LULA are able to sort through thousands of images after a shoot and come up with a portfolio a week after returning to the digital darkroom. 

[RSL]

Even in the short term, I'll find that after working on an image, if I let it "sit" for a day or two and then go back to the file with fresh eyes, I'll often take a different tack on processing.

After letting it sit for a day or two I often find that the best different tack in processing is to press the delete button.

[Rob C]

I find that I need time to look at my images.  At least for me part of the process is spending time repeatedly viewing and organizing my best work.  I'm always amazed how the folks at LULA are able to sort through thousands of images after a shoot and come up with a portfolio a week after returning to the digital darkroom.

Something I think worth saying, regarding how I handled it: I was dealing mainly with slides, and putting a 36exp cassette of Kodachrome onto a Kodak Transparency Viewer Mk 3 was lovely: you could edit very quickly just on body language/shapes as a first step, and then when you'd sidelined the duds, concentrate on the remainders with a loupe and chose from those. With b/w it was just a matter of looking at contact sheets.

With digi, which is just for the hell of it, I find that even about 50 images is far too many for comfort. They are simply too big on the screen and I get bogged down in minute details sometimes, at the expense of the overall feel. I would absolutely hate to have to contend with a thousand. I enjoy my Ludditism!

Rob

[tom b]

"With digi, which is just for the hell of it, I find that even about 50 images is far too many for comfort. They are simply too big on the screen and I get bogged down in minute details sometimes, at the expense of the overall feel. I would absolutely hate to have to contend with a thousand. I enjoy my Ludditism!"

The solution is Adobe Bridge, just like a contact sheet.

Cheers,

[Rand47]

After letting it sit for a day or two I often find that the best different tack in processing is to press the delete button.

Amen, to that!  LOL  Many "beauties" on first blush end up in the round-file on further evaluation.  I once heard someone say the difference between "pop" and "art" can be expressed like this upon viewing both.

Pop:  "Wow....,   Huh?"

Art:  "Huh?...., Wow!"

Rand

[Rob C]

"With digi, which is just for the hell of it, I find that even about 50 images is far too many for comfort. They are simply too big on the screen and I get bogged down in minute details sometimes, at the expense of the overall feel. I would absolutely hate to have to contend with a thousand. I enjoy my Ludditism!"

The solution is Adobe Bridge, just like a contact sheet.

Cheers,

I think I have that; but it's deeper yet: film selection was a tactile experience of moving slides or uncut strips of film around the viewer surface, whereas nothing on a monitor is tactile but simply a disembodies thing that's not even real... the spiritual disconnect with one's 'work' is horrid.

Rob