Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/08/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]An article by Freeman Patterson in Photo Life magazine raised a question about how photojournalists using digital cameras treated their images. He suggested that the norm was for them to essentially delete their older unused images, as opposed to film photographers who tend to keep their negatives. He illustrated this with the example of an old photo of Monica Lewinsky meeting Bill Clinton in public that some photographer discovered amongst his old negatives, and which has appeared numerous times in the press. Patterson claims, "None of the digital photographers had any such visual records. All their old images had been deleted." Is this a valid argument (or even a true one in the above example)? I am not a photojournalist, but I have kept the vast majority of the digital images I've taken in the past 4 years, since I first started using digital cameras, probably numbering between 15,000 and 20,000 images. The only images I delete are the ones where I am fooling around with or testing the camera. But what about working photojournalists? Do they routinely delete photos (images) that aren't needed for a current assignment? -dan c.