Unviewed photographs.

How many of you have not looked at all the images taken at any given time in the past? I know that I have too many images stored on separate hard drives that have not seen the light of day, aside from random selections picked out to photoshop on...
As a percentage, I'd guess 30% has not been viewed due to laziness and thinking I'd view them later on in the future.

I pretty much know all 180K of them. Maybe I missed a little pocket of similar images in a mass download after a trip here and there. But as I bring the images onto my computer I'm viewing/discarding, then run through them with basic editing in Lightroom within a week's time and mark the ones I mean to do more with in some other program.

But my best friend has looked at only perhaps 25% of the photos on his drives, if that. He has entire trips to wonderful places that he has never even peeped at. He is a gifted photographer but I think he enjoys the process of taking them more than anything.

Interesting topic - I've never really thought about that, but I think I've looked at least one time at almost all of the shots I've taken... it's possible that there are 2-3% of older photos on my hard drives which I never looked at and then forgot about, but I'd be surprised if it would be more than that.

That being said I'm more and more hesitant when I transfer images from my camera to my computer. Because I'm taking a lot of stacked shots, I'm regularly skipping whole sections which I deem inferior and just don't ever copy them onto my hard drive at all. I feel like that's a (tiny) sign of making progress though, as I'm starting to feel more comfortable judging the quality of shots immediately, instead of having to process several and then decide...

That's quite fascinating... it reminds me of my childhood, where I loved to go mushroom hunting with my dad, even though I never liked eating them. It just was a lot of fun being able to find and pick them, being outside in the woods and crossing some rough terrain, I guess. And giving them as a gift to people who loved eating them was great as well.

That is similar to my situation. I've many holiday trips with too many images to view in several sittings. Many just get skipped over thinking I'll view them later. Later turns into years...

Magic mushrooms? [tease] That's a great way to get a good dose of vitamin N [ N - being nature]

My wife and I are polar opposites in this regard. She takes lots of pictures and rarely culls through them. I am OCD about mine. First I take many fewer pictures. I am careful about my intentions for each image. Before pushing the shutter I ask myself if the picture is worth taking and likely to be something I would want to print. After a shooting session, I cull usually that day or at latest within a day or two. I tend to be ruthless in culling even though I try to be careful to avoid the tendency towards spray and pray.

When culling I typically identify those pictures which really stand out and met my expectations. I do a quick post processing of those images. If I shoot for a few hours I might be lucky enough to have a half dozen or so I really like. I keep duplicates of those in a separate folder. I might also make a couple of small (8 1/2 x 11) proof prints. I review those a few times to understand what worked and what should have been done differently. I become very familar with those images that I processed and especially those I printed. As a result I really don't need or use any sort of file management system. I just keep images by date and include a place/event description on that date folder.

This is an interesting discussion. Thanks for starting it.

For me, one of the primary benefits of having images on the cloud with (pick your provider of choice… for me, it’s Adobe LR) and a corresponding app on (pick your tablet of choice…. For me it’s a 12.9” iPad M1 Pro) is the ability to sit in my easy chair (or anywhere else) and scroll through images from two decades ago whilst watching a football game or something. It’s also fun to re-edit old images right from my iPad while I’m waiting on the punter to kick.

When my images were only on a local drive tied to my computer, I simply did not review images nearly as much. Now that they are cloud-based (and also on my Mac), I review them in LRM a lot. Any re-edits get synced all into LRC as well.

So, percentage wise? I can guess that in a 1-year period, I probably look at 80% of my old images at least once (and maybe even edit some images that were not edited 15-years ago).

Sounds like a relaxed and convenient way to edit. Part of my issue is that whilst culling images I'm overcome by a form of 'editing narcolepsy' and start to grow weary quite rapidly. This doesn't bode well with my procrastination disposition either...lol

I typically shoot landscapes, architecture and macro so I tend to shoot relatively small numbers of shots and get to see all of them . I have recently been digging into the archive and trying out some of the new "AI" software . I am interested in shooting some birds and reading posts from the bird guys it seems you can generate a hell of lot of images 😀

I shoot a variety of genres and depending on certain ones, I do tend to shoot a hell of a lot. I do make a concerted effort not to do so, but sometimes circumstances are beyond my control. I wholly advocate you taking up bird photography. Not as simple as one may think and before you know it, you are addicted.

Well you know what I take Jim. The most I've ever come home with is around 130 shots in a session and always at slow frame rates compared to most at 8-10 FPS. So we don't all blast away at 20-50 FPS and end up with thousands each time 😉 That would drive nuts mate.

I view every photo I make while making it. I also review photos in the field to delete those that are horribly out of focus or misframed. During my import routine, I review them again while adding keywords and assigning GPS coordinates.

I wonder, when you write that you pick out "random selections" of photos for processing, is that just a figure of speech or do you really choose images at random to be processed?

Due to lack of skill and experience I am hoping for a 1/1000 hit rate 😀 I am still humming and hawing whether to get the new Nikon 180-600mm or something in m43 land. You have seen some of the bird guys in the forum talking about how many shots they have taken the thought of hunting through hundreds thousands of shots curls my hair 😀

Similar to the days of contact sheet from film negatives, I'd scan the screen of images and randomly pick out several images and process them later on. Many are left unviewed due to laziness. I might go over them again weeks later if unhappy with the ones I picked out. Sometimes years later as I have decades of images.
You seem very disciplined with your culling Bill. And of course, your images are top notch as well.