Digital BW, The Print

Barrett Benton wrote:
> it ocurred to me that, had I been shooting digital, 
> just how many of these images might've been 86'd in haste? 
> There have been more than a few "reconsidered" frames that 
> didn't get the grease-pencil treatment the first time around, but 
> on second consideration became "new" keepers.

I'm not sure how others go about this, but for my own part,
I don't usually edit while I'm out in the field shooting. Even
for those images where I might shoot a burst of 10 frames
with the idea in my head that I'm just looking for 1 
"decisive moment" images, I'll wait until I'm later home
and sitting in front of my computer screen to decide which
one is the keeper and which ones just get dumped. So I
don't want to edit too, too prematurely.

And it also happens, from time to time, where I might see
a series of 10 images in a row which I've shot, thinking
I'm only looking for 1 "decisive moment" image, but then
in reviewing the work back at home, I see that I actually like
four or five of the images, and that while one of them is
a good "decisive moment", indeed four or five of them
together make a very nice little series.

And this has happened to me more than just one time.
And so while I try to be somewhat ruthless about my 
editing when I get home, at the same time I also try to
keep somewhat of an open mind to whatever "nice 
surprises" show up which I didn't initially anticipate
during the actual shooting earlier.

But beyond that, I try to be somewhat ruthless in my editing...
not altogether uncommon if 30-50% of what I shot during
a given day just gets dumped immediately, to my mind
not even worth keeping in the archives for some future
time when I might want to look back on what I shot.

Then again, I kept everything I shot for the first 20 years.
I mean everything. And so nowadays I just think to myself: 
"Seriously CJ, you're running out of closet space; you really
have to get a bit more ruthless about your editing for
anything further you shoot these days."

So yeah, perhaps I'm losing an image here and there which
even though it's a turkey still has some sort of intrinsic
value (sentimental or otherwise). But I have to weigh that
against the fact that... well... I'm already near being out of 
closet space.  :-)

CJ