revjim.net

Several times in the past, and again today, I have been asked why it is I don't simply publish *all* of the images straight out of my camera on to the web for my viewers to see. I'd like to attempt an explanation.

Very rarely is a professional photographer's work presented as a giant flip-book of shot after shot after shot just as they were taken from the film or digital camera. Regardless of what the reason for the photographs are, the photographer generally wants to show only his or her best images. A portrait studio doesn't want the purchaser to have to flip through hundreds of bad shots just to see one or two good ones. A fashion photographer doesn't want his customer to see the images where the model's eyes were closed, or the framing was off just enough to make the background slightly crooked. A product photographer doesn't want to show off the photographs where the background lighting wasn't quite bright enough to render the product surrounded in perfectly bright white.

Every collection of images is "edited" (as it is known in the business) which, for most photographers, naturally happens in several phases.

Many of my photographs from a shoot are light tests. I wasn't concerned with how she looked or what she was doing, I was just making sure I had the proper exposure dialed in on my camera (since I work without a flash meter, and even then, a lot of film-based pros use a polaroid camera to test this very thing). There are several of these every time the lighting is changed or the model's pose is changed enough that the lighting could be affected.

Many of the photos have her with her eyes shut, or making a bad face. This can often be anticipated, but some models are very "blinky" and others start to say something just as your finger has pressed the trigger.

Many of the shots were improved by the following shot as is part of the process that even most of the best National Geographic phtographers use (frame, shoot, then consider if you should reframe. reframe, shoot, then consider if you should reframe again. Repeat until you feel satisfied, move on to the next shot). All the shots prior to the "good" shot are only slightly different from the final image. Maybe I crouched a little lower, angled the camera slightly different, or had her turn her face just a little more away from the camera. In most cases, for every "good" shot, I'll take 2 to 5 shots leading up to it. Why even push the button until you know you've got it? Who knows. But even film based photographers who "pay per shot" tend to practice this behavior.

There are a few shots that are just plain underexposed, out of focus, misframed, etc… purely a photographer's mistake. These are few and far between, but, in a series of 140 shots, I usually manage to have 1 or 2 or these. Many photographers are good enough that they don't get any of these. I'm not that good yet.

After weeding out all of those you're left with about 10-20%. This is the first phase of "editing". It removes all of the obvious junk and duplicates. If I were ever going to post anything in its "entirety" it would happen after the first phase of editing.

The second phase of editing is where the remaining images are examined for content, clarity, proper framing, meaning, etc. This is where "this one is good and this one is bad" takes place. Some images simply don't fit the vision of the shoot: the expression isn't right, or the hands aren't placed as well as you thought they were. These are images that are, technically speaking, good, but just don't fit the vision, artistically. Sometimes an effect you were going for just didn't work out as well as you had planned or, despite your attempts, the model just wouldn't or couldn't do what you were looking for. For me, this phase weeds out about half of those that remained from the first cut. More experienced photographers are surely better at getting what they expect, someday, hopefully, I'll be able to skip this phase of editing entirely.

Finally, there is the third phase of editing. In the "film" world, this happens after proofs have been made of those that made the second phase cut. The proofs are examined, areas are selected to be dodged and burned, cropping is determined, contrast is altered and many other darkroom techniques are applied. Most amatuers can't afford this phase (unless they are a student with a dark room available to them) and most portrait studios don't bother with it. Often times street photographer's and photojournalists will skip it as well. However, fine art photographers, fashion photographers, and commercial photographers almost always participate in this phase of the edit. In the digital photography world, this is where the image is edited in software. I don't mean drastic digital editing. I mean applying standard camera "filters" and conventional darkroom techniques in software.

Most often, the thrid phase of editing doesn't cause any images to be thrown out. But sometimes, since the images are being examined more closely, a photographer will decide not to use an image in this phase.

And there you have it. 140 images quickly shrinks to about 10 or 20. 140 images becomes 14 to 28 images just by removing junk and duplicates in the first phase. This cut isn't really a matter of "opinion". The ones that are cut are clearly either junk or superfluous. While they might make a nice addition to a "behind the scenes" type portfolio, they certainly don't represent your "finished" product. The remaining two edits are very opinion based, very time consuming, and result in the possible removal of images that other people might deem as "good".