Anyone else (both new and vet photographers) have an issue "letting go" of pictures?

[Ballistics]

After moving all of my pictures from my card to my computer, I started to weed out the garbage but I'm having a hard time deleting most of these pics. I feel that even
though some (most) are out of focus, poorly lit, poorly composed etc they are all telling a story worth hearing. I can't bring myself to delete the out of focus shot of my youngest shrinking
his face to the taste of lemon. Anyone else have some sort of attachment to poor quality pictures?

 

[RauschPhotography]

Nope. If it can't be saved, it can't be saved with OOF shots. Poor composition may help with a crop, but it can't work miracles. All you can do is learn from the past and apply what knowledge you've picked up on!

 

[CCericola]

Let someone else edit. You are too emotionally attached to the subject.

 

[Ballistics]

Pretty sure my point was missed.

 

[Josh66]

I used to, but now I don't think twice about deleting them.

I think after a while, you just get tired of collecting 'crap', then you go through and clean house. Basically, if I don't feel that it's good enough to print - there is no point keeping it on the computer.
Flickr is another story. I have a lot of 'crap' on there. It's not on my hard drive, so I don't really worry about it. I upload almost everything, just in case I change my mind about something I deleted - I can always download it off of Flickr.

 

[Ballistics]

You get it Josh.

 

[KmH]

Anyone else (both new and vet photographers) have an issue "letting go" of pictures?

Nope. I flush all the turds.

 

[frisii]

Sometimes I have but not often.

For years, I took too many. Now I only considered pictures of static scenes in the countryside. I take 50-100 over four or five hours. Half of those will be bracketing or varied composition. In the end, I choose the best (about 10-15) and the others get deleted.

After moving all of my pictures from my card to my computer, I started to weed out the garbage but I'm having a hard time deleting most of these pics. I feel that even
though some (most) are out of focus, poorly lit, poorly composed etc they are all telling a story worth hearing. I can't bring myself to delete the out of focus shot of my youngest shrinking
his face to the taste of lemon. Anyone else have some sort of attachment to poor quality pictures?

 

[tirediron]

Yes and no... the way I see it, electronic storage is cheap like borscht these days, so anything that's even remotely acceptable gets saved, 'just in case'.

 

[EmMcCon]

Yes and no... the way I see it, electronic storage is cheap like borscht these days, so anything that's even remotely acceptable gets saved, 'just in case'.

This is me

 

[c.cloudwalker]

The problem with this question is that it has very little to do with photography and most to do with being a parent...

 

[imagemaker46]

I never toss any images of my kids, I have all the negs in binders. There are lots of soft images, but editing them out is pointless and time consuming. All the digi stuff I have is sharp and although I may delete some, if I have shot a bunch. It is about being a parent.

 

[behanana]

My problem is most of the pictures I have are from vacations, house, kids, ect. so deleting about anything is difficult because even the very poor snap shots and OOF crap hold value to me. Now the stuff I fool around with like taking pictures of water drops and trying different techniques and such I don't have that much trouble dumping. Like cloudwalker said though, pictures of my son I can't get rid of no matter how bad they are, and when you can get a 1Tbyte external hard drive for under $70 it's easy to keep the crap. All this being said from only being a dad, husband, and inexperianced noob so if you are a pro I can't help ya at all!

 

[mishele]

I feel your pain!! I have been there. As you get better you will go back through your old shots over and over again and start deleting. I have shots from early on that really aren't that good but they still have a place w/me.....lol At least until I make a new milestone and they get deleted too. It will be a continual process. (hopefully I got it...lol)

 

[manaheim]

I keep the special moment ones (of the kids, for example) for when I decide to get over myself and put 'em up... but I rarely put 'em up. Anything else that's borked beyond use I will toss.