[Leica] Question for photojournalists concerning digital photos

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Gerry Walden wrote:
> But picture researchers now going through such 'black holes' are coming
> up with real gems just like prospectors finding nuggets of gold. If we
> edit the way we are now there will be no nuggets of gold to find.<<<

Hi Gerry,
We are at the moment preparing my files, well those of the past 25 years, as
the first 25 years are already at the National Archives of Canada in the
National Photo Collection.

However, we've come across negatives & contact sheets from a 1962 magazine 
assignment.in Madrid, Munich, Paris & London. Your comment about finding 
nuggets ;-) is kind of fitting in this case as there were/are a number of 
frames never printed. Well OK I think they're nuggets. ;-) Why?

Well in 1962 I didn't look at the frames shot that didn't pertain to the 
assignment, but were moments captured because of.... "Geez look at that! 
Click!" So nothing was ever done with them.

Much to my surprise it appears I didn't do too bad 43 years ago as a 
shooter. ;-) And I found a few gems after all this time. However, if I were 
shooting digital then, as I do most of the time these days, they wouldn't 
exist as it would've been deleted ....... "not part of the story!"  But in 
this case the images just discovered are here because they were on film. :-)

Without question one burns far more images to digital capture than film 
exposures, or it certainly seems so. By the same token we edit & delete like 
tigers in heat ruthlessly. All the screw-ups, some happy snaps at second 
look and any misfired stuff is gone on first cut.

Second go around we dump after a comparison image to image on the screen 
full size. Then it's third and final look and those that don't make it we 
move to a folder and burn to CD during clean-up.

Actually sounds like a lot of work but it isn't any more than we did/do with 
slides. But we are amassing a pile of CD's and even though each is 
identified I'm sure some day it's going to be what doesn't make the third 
and final cut will just be deleted due to space for storage.

The Canadian Press in Toronto head office do not keep all the images shot by 
their photographers simply because, the cost would become prohibitive. The 
head honcho told me it would cost them at least $100,000 a year to just file 
and store everything. So they predominately save only those pictures moved 
on the wire and some back-ups from the same assignment.

But with film they kept everything. So go figure, but it just comes down to 
space and filing images.

But as you say, some time down the line it will be discovered a tremendous 
amount of our historical lives on planet Earth will have been "deleted!" :-(

ted