What is the first part of your work, after the shoot, in post? I would venture to guess that it is getting rid of the shots that aren’t up to your standards (culling) and sorting the ones that you do want to keep into your editing workflow. That’s what I do. I keep the good and I want to incinerate any record of me having taken a bad photo off the face of the earth. NO ONE CAN KNOW THAT I HAVE TAKEN A BAD IMAGE… NO ONE!!!
A secret that I think many of you might share, I don’t deliver default file names anymore (such as IMG_3994.JPG) because I’ve had enough people look at an IMG_3994 and then the next image, IMG_3996, and ask me “what happened to IMG 3995”? Even if there is a 100% chance it has been zapped because I took two or three images of the same thing to ensure I didn’t snag someone blinking, mistrust seems to be built there. They could think “I wonder what else I don’t have!” and be unhappy. I have had that happen, actually. I think it’s the crazier sort I should have seen coming before I got them through the booking process, but nevertheless, covering our tracks, so to speak, seems like something that regular photographers do to save, or worse, project the image of being professional. Now, I deliver files that are progressively named per shoot, so they get rewritten as the “keepers” export to “Phil&Sarah001, Phil&Sarah002” etc.
So anyway, talking realistic delivery numbers, if I go to a wedding and shoot 2000 images, I will probably deliver 500 of what I consider the best of the best. Now, 500 images is a lot. From a client’s perspective, who has 500 images that they look at regularly? Nobody! I have been married since 2010 and I’ve looked at all 3-400 of my photos maybe twice, got about 10 printed and framed, and the rest are somewhere backed up, waiting for….God knows what would motivate me to look at them. I like them, but they’re just not something that I or anyone else really needs to have constant access to. 10 images I love, can print, and hang in my home are more important than 500 that are pretty good, mostly rudimentary, and sit on a hard drive.
Now it sounds like I am making a case to only deliver the 10 best images! That is the exact opposite of the point I am making.
Pride is the reason that I throw out way more images than I keep. I want to look good. I want to protect my brand. I want to be more liked and respected as a photographer. I want to be more successful (make more money). These motivations are heavy in the “I” and not very client-based, unfortunately. It takes a hard look in the mirror to admit these things. But YOU HAVE TO if you want to start making more money. These are the seeds of great growth in your client base.
I have often given into the lie of thinking how I appear on my website is what makes people book me. Don’t get me wrong, people need to have a good experience in how they perceive you online, and your portfolio needs to speak for itself. BUT – for me and for the vast majority of photographers, what drives people to your site in the first place? I would argue that it is unequivocally: word of mouth.
What they find there needs to be good, but the thing that gets them there in the first place is their cousin Elizabeth who cries tears of joy every time she sees an image you took at her wedding, and swears you are the best photographer in the world for the job. That kind of endorsement is what generates us the most business and the most income, and doing what you can to make people sing your praises that loudly should be your primary goal at every shoot.
So where does the workflow process enter this equation?
I cull a lot. And it is mostly because of my taste. My standards are high because like many photographers, I am often my biggest critic. Something slightly out of focus? Gone. They’ll think I don’t know how to work my gear. One person in a group not looking right at the camera? Gone. They’ll think I don’t look carefully enough at what I deliver. I (we, especially wedding photographers who have such a great volume of images to work through) make these decisions on what stays and what goes in the blink of an eye, and move on to the next one.
There is a certain amount of brand-protection that ought to occur, but I have had one KEY experience at probably 40% of the weddings I have shot, and I would bet that it happens a great deal more and I just don’t end up hearing about it.
I’ll get a message from mainly the bride, and she will say, “My favorite picture is [XYZ].” On occasion I will hear that an image I took brings them to tears, I wasn’t making that stuff up about Elizabeth a few paragraphs back. And almost invariably, I express my gratitude for their feedback and then think to myself “THAT PICTURE?? That picture is trash! I was this close (holds up thumb and index finger in near proximity) to throwing that one in the garbage heap. Look, the composition, there’s a guy walking through the back, or the focus isn’t flawless, or there’s a weird tree in the background that is drawing too much attention, or the color scheme is all over the place, etc. etc. etc.
And I keep to myself, happy that they are happy, but befuddled as to why that one would be the winner of the day.
And then something magic and terrible happens: instead of my clients thinking “what aren’t they giving me” the tables have turned and I am the one thinking “what haven’t I given them?” Which image have I tossed in haste that may have been their favorite image? It could be that otherwise boring shot that grandma who has made an appearance on a dance floor for the last time in her life is in the background of (not being morbid, this has happened to clients of mine) that ends up in the trash heap and could be so so valuable to someone else’s eye.
This is the heart of the article. Ultimately the photographer can do their very best to learn their craft and deliver compelling images, but at the end of the day, if you are working with people, we don’t get to decide which images pull the heart strings. We aren’t capable of knowing what image is going to have deep impact on someone else’s life because we don’t know who is surviving breast cancer, or who has been the bride’s favorite uncle since birth, or any number of situations that build emotional attachment to our images.
Because we can’t possibly know the reasons every client attaches feelings to people and situations, we need the humility to approach culling in a more forgiving fashion. It only takes one image that you tossed because you were looking at with a technically discerning eye and not the eye of your client, to be the difference between having clients rave about you to their friends and having clients think you were just technically proficient.
Could it result in a client thinking you took a bad image or let a few slide by, certainly. But where do those images go? They go, just like the majority of my personal wedding photos, back in the hard drive until another 7 years passes by and I want to look at them for kicks. Don’t let yourself play to the masses and hope for the best, let your client decide what matters most to them, and if you strike gold with one image worth crying over in the bunch, the 27, or even 57 “maybes” you let slide through will be soon forgotten.
My guess is that you’ll hit more winners than you think, and that’s why I say you are throwing away money when you over-cull your images. Might a happy client buy a print? Possibly, but having a walking advertisement gushing about your work is the biggest value of all, and you just might be throwing those opportunities in the digital trash bin.
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I had an afterthought to this article after I published it because of another article I wrote – it occurred to me that when I am throwing away photos in the culling process, I am doing it without the benefit of thinking about what they might be made into still. The editing process is not actually considered when I cull, and that could make an image more tolerable to me personally, however little that matters. So if you’re interested in it, scope out the article I wrote on how editing and getting things right in camera are better friends than enemies, as they are sometimes are slated.
