percentage of 'keepers'

[Richard Schlesinger]

I have just returned from two days in Death Valley with about 20 4X5 negatives which I am in the process of proofing. From past experience I expect I may have maybe two or three (at best) I want to spend time printing. I intend to go back in the next few weeks to try to improve the ones that are almost worth spending time on.

What I am wondering is what percentage of your negatives you find you want to spend time printing, toning, mounting etc. I think I am doing well if I have one out of ten I want to put in the time working on. And what to do with all the other negatives? The trash barrel? I have done that and later been sorry. But now I have zillions of worhtless nicely exposed negatives (is there a market?).

I'm sure those of you shooting 8X10 must have a much higher percentage of keepers. And 11X14? I would be terrified to expose that much film all at one time! I have nothing but respect and admiration for those of you working at the ulf sizes.

Just wondering

[Steve Feldman]

1:10 - Seems about right for me. 2:10 was a great day. 3:10 hasn't happened yet.

BTW - Death Valley's gotta be d*mn cold about now. That's dedication.

"What to do with all the other negatives?" - Wallpaper the bathroom.

[Steven Barall]

Having some kind of experience during the shooting process is important. I think that it's a good idea to go out with the camera for a couple of weeks but don't bring along any film. Find your photos, set up the camera, frame the photo and just fold it up and move on. Do it just for the experience without thinking about a product. If you know why you are making a photo in the first place you will have more film that you think is worth dealing with in the end. Identify where the important experience is for you and look at every frame intently.

That said, I personally end up having about five 4X5 sheets out of ten that I feel I can continue on with. I mean that they are films that continue the process and don't peter out or become diffuse in some way relative to my intent or they reveal to me for the first time what my intent actually is. It's a dialogue.

Save all of your film. Intent can change and you might find that those films you ignored in the first place can form a different core of your work and you might not realize this for years. Besides, you made the photos and it's your responsibility to deal with them. That said, purging, turning the page and moving on is important also. Life is a highway...

[Bruce Schultz]

For me, that would be too much like keeping score. Sometimes I like more than half of what I shoot, while other times I can't bear to look at anything.
I try not to look at my rejects as failures; they are all part of the learning process that never ends.

[CXC]

For 4x5, 1 in 4. I am very focussed on weeding out the boring stuff _before_ clicking the shutter. It took some years before I could get completely set up for a shot and then not take it.

[Dan Jolicoeur]

My precentage of keepers have increased with film testing and readyloads. Also I believe with staying with one focal length lens until you start getting consistant results. Figure out what your problem is, composition, subject matter, exposure, development. There are many variables, change one at a time. Do you have a preconsieved image in mind of the composed pictue before you snap the shutter? Do you need to move in closer? An intersting excersise; take a roll of 35mm film on the same subject. Take a picture from all sides and different heights, moving in closer and finding another object on the original subject from each side. This can be done with a paper grocerie bag in the back yard.

Good luck
Dan

[Daniel Geiger]

One in five to ten 4x5 sounds about right. And that is "scenes" or set-ups. That figure is for those that are good for the family greeting cards, and are submittable to the stock agency. There may be just half a dozen to a dozen out of 200-300 sheets that I really like.

I shoot chromes, with respect to exposures within a set, there usually are two that are fine and differ in mood,while the third is simply over/underexposed. I keep most of them and file them in binders with plastic sleeves along with the data sheet. If I throw one or two, I mark on the data sheet, which one was tossed. And as others, I view it as a learning experience and after a while I can pick out patterns (e.g., adding only +1 f-stop for light polarizer use is too little, rather +1.5).

I have just been at it for a year, so I still try a bunch of things (like flashing, selective focus vs large depth of field, with/without CF), so shoot about 70% of the set-ups; for about 30% I pack it in again and move on. As it is a hobby, I don't get worked up about "wasted" film. If I have fun going out, that's all that matters. If the images are fine on top of that, it's a bonus. In the glass half full/empty metaphor, the good picture are what flows over the rim of a full glass.

[Brian Ellis]

Was this your first trip to Death Valley? I've found that my number of "keepers" improves as I visit the same place multiple times. I seldom make many "keepers" on the first visit, especially if it's on vacation and I can't be picky about lighting and weather conditions. If it's any comfort, I spent a week around Death Valley for the first time earlier this year. I made about 70 4x5 negatives. I made contact sheets of all of them, proofed about ten, and actually made serious prints of about six of the proofs. And that was pretty good for me on a first visit. If I hadn't spent an afternoon at Alabama Hills I would only have made three for my week in Death Valley.

I read somewhere that Ansel Adams estimated that he made 40,000 photographs in his lifetime and made exhibition quality prints of about 1,000. If Adams only got 1 in 40 "keepers" you did well if you got two or three out of twenty.

[MIke Sherck]

What Brian said. The first time I visit a particular place or work with a person I may feel fortunate to get one good exposure out of ten. The more often I re-visit a place or see a person, the better the ratio becomes.

As for what to do with "failed" negatives, I weed out the obviously awful at once (perhaps half, perhaps less than that,) the rest get contact printed for proofs. Every couple of years I go back through the discard piles to see whether any of those images have "grown" in the meantime. I'm consciously critical of them at that time, and rejects get shredded. I don't feel bad -- I've accepted the fact that over the course of my lifetime, I'll make lots more rejects. :)

At least glass plate photographers can make windows out of their failed negatives!

[Richard Schlesinger]

I plan to go back to DV with contact sheets in hand to try and "improve" what I have. I've been there many times over the past 40 years - but not much lately. I am really very curious about the 8X10 and larger photographers. How many negatives do you make? I think about 8X10 but aside from being too big and heavy for me at my advanced stage of decay I don't know as the photographs I make are worth that much film.

[Jerry Cunningham]

I am very happy to get one out of eight. That is shooting 4x5. Oddly enough, I get about one out of three when I shoot 8x10. I am learning not to shoot unless the image really jumps out at me. Kind of like getting married. If in doubt-don't.
Jerry

[Mike Lewis]

I just returned from a trip to the Seattle, Washington area where I shot twenty 4x5 Quickloads. I have two that I like enough to have scanned in order to make large prints. I must admit I'm a bit disappointed in the yield, but the 1:10 ratio seems about right for me or even high for a trip to a new place. I think I do better on subsequent visits to a particular place as I have a better idea of where and when (time of year and time of day) to take photos.

[Henry Friedman]

I saw a major Ansel Adams retrospective here in Washington DC a few years ago. There was just about everything he was known for on the walls - perhaps 120 prints. How many negatives do you figure he exposed to get those 120 prints? Also, I seem to remember that Robert Frank drew from tens of thousands of negatives to produce "The Americans".

If you're satisfied with 1/20 of your exposures, be happy.

[Jon Wilson]

If I am lucky, I will 2 out of 10 exposures as keepers. However, I usually keep all the developed chromes and B&W negs be they 4x5, 5x7, or 8x10. I try to mark each with exposure records and identify the lens used. This gives me an opportunity to later try to visualize the abilities of the various lens, at different aperture settings, film, and photographic situations.....this is of course taking in consideration my LF limitations. I agree with others' comments, that the more time one returns to the same location, I find I am able to hone the quality of my exposures.

[lee\c]

Richard Avedon shot over 700 people for the "In the American West". Thousands of 8x10 negs. there are about 135 or so people in the show. Editing your work is good and hard at the same time.

leec

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Decent shots (well composed, nice light and exposure, suitable for stock submission or greeting card type uses, etc.)- about half

Truly moving, inspirational shots that I consider representative of my vision, and definitive of my goals as a photographer- 3 out of about 1700 sheets of 4X5 shot over the last 4 years

[Bruce Schultz]

An old, wise editor once advised me to "Kill all the puppies" in the final edit of a news story. What he meant was be ruthless and weed out the extraneous, even those little nuggets that don't really move the story along. I think the same thing could be said for editing fotos. Get rid of the ones that merely involved a pleasant memory or a nice day, or make you explain to the viewer "Guess you had to be there."
Eventually, you learn to be more discerning in what fotos you take, even after setting up a difficult shot. Sometimes I've felt satisfied with walking away from a shot without firing the shutter, knowing that I could better apply my time to more worthy subjects. But sometimes you just have to get things out of your system. If I were shooting 4x5, I'd be more inclined to fire away but 8x10's expense and weight makes you rethink.

[N Dhananjay]

Let me provide a counterpoint to the opinions above.

First of all, what do we mean by a 'keeper'? If it is a photograph that is successful based on some criteria established beforehand, then it is just a matter of a lack of discipline - one fires the shutter even though one knows the image on the GG does not satisfy the criteria that have been consciously established beforehand. Also note that this is likely a confirmation of things we already know about (in a visual sense) since that is how you can establish the criteria. If it is based upon a judgment one forms after looking at the print (and I do think it is worth printing every negative that does not have an obvious error in seeing or technique), then we are saying that the image does not satisfy something undefined inside oneself. One may not have a clear idea about why it is unsatisfactory, just that it is. Note also that this approach has a greater exphasis on visual exploration.

I do think the non-keepers are necessary for the keepers to emerge. And I use the word emerge carefully. I'm not interested in the carefully established criteria beforehand, although I agree there are certain areas where that may be a perfectly legitimate way to work. The most interesting work is the stuff that is an emergent phenomenon - the pre-defined stuff tends to become a little boring and I think this is because the pre-defined criteria confirm what we know already, rather than being a visual exploration - we do not experience any personal growth. We work on a lot of stuff unconciously, by doing. You work out visual ideas in pieces, and so a lot of photographs may not 'work', but eventually you get to the stage where all the pieces you have been working on fall together and suddenly you will find you are making new images of surprising strength. You can't get to that except by doing, by slogging through the work.

I'd also like to point out that the very idea of a 'keeper' encourages thinking in terms of images, rather than in terms of a body of work. It encourages thoughts of 'being in the right place, at the right time'. And it can very actively conspire to limit your seeing. The dice are already loaded against fresh seeing, because a part of us is wired that way, and our environment tends to encourgae that wiring. A part of your brain is always saying, "Don't waste your time - this is how you make sense of this thing." Which is great when you have to make a decision about something in a split second but is terrible when you are trying to see things in a new light.

So, do throw out any negative that has obvious faults in technique and/or seeing. Keep the rest along with one print that has been made as well as you can. Look at the body of your work every now and again look also at the 'non-keepers' and think about why you might have tripped the shutter. You might find your vision moves in interesting directions.

Cheers, DJ

[Ed K.]

The definition of a "keeper" can be a moving target. Seems like it is possible to get many keepers per session at times, however there are better ones within that group, and new insight. Sometimes I go out, with 20+ sheets and come back with only one or two sheets exposed...a sort of "air photography" one might say. I chalk those days up to scouting; take notes and at least enjoy the day. I think that if I end up with a dozen true classic keepers in my whole life, I'll be very satisfied indeed. Along the way though, using the same camera and taking less with me each time out in the field seems to help. It's all sort of like climbing hills and mountains - a climb, a fall, a pleasant meadow, then a steep climb again. At least the journey is good.

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

for me about 2 out of ten that please me. I have some that I didn't think much of, that others looking at the contact liked. Mike Lewis, next time you come to Seattle get ahold of me and I will take you where the tourist don't go. Invitation open to anyone else also.