Photography

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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

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Do you keep all your files from a job, and if so, how long? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by shinobi441@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

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Hi Everyone,

I started offering photography services to my immediate circle for their art projects, modeling endeavors, etc. I am new to this starting only earlier this year.

The question I have for seasoned professionals and semi professionals is: do you keep ALL the photos you take of a given shoot? For example, I shot my friend, and we took maybe 500+ photos during the shoot. We sat down together another day and identified like 60 that she wants sent to her of that shoot (no edits, she’s doing that herself/outsourcing it).

The question is: what the heck do I do with the other 440 photos? I have like 15TB of space, so I can keep all the shots with no issue, but this surely isn’t sustainable forever. I come from an Engineering background where archiving files is the gospel (where I may need access to any given revision at any instant) but this might not be the case once my initial 60 “keepers” were identified and sent.

Thoughts and feedback?

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[–] magickalcat@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Nooooo way. They get a sample board of the images shot, and once the client receives their edits it is their responsibility to save them. Make sure it states that in your contracts. I only hold onto photos that I love & want to share on socials or my portfolio- or turn into prints.

It’s a matter of personal preference if you want to archive all of your past photos for personal use.

Personally, the longer I have done this for work the less clutter I want to deal with. I shoot a lot of film & I do hold onto physical negatives from some shoots, but I don’t have that same sort of attachment to my digital work. All of this is to say, it’s really just up to you 😅 you’ll figure it out as you go.