Film photography has been out of mainstream favor for many many years. And despite film making a resurgence most professional photographers will still rely on digital over film. This means a photographer is not limited to the number of shots they can take, and often most digital photographers can rack up an impressive number of shots from a single photoshoot. I myself can range anywhere from 100-1000 shots inside one photo shoot. So what do photographers do with all those photos?

Now I can not speak for everyone, but I will share what I do. I store them. Simple as that.

Why?

Because I might want to come back to them someday. As photographers, we are constantly learning. This hobby and profession always have new cameras coming out, new lenses to explore, and brand new software to experiment with, and with each passing year, we as photographers get better little by little.

With that new skill comes the opportunity for us to revisit old photos and ideas and see if we can improve upon our older work. Let me give you an example…

The photo below was taken 07/21/2020 with Maeve in Tampa FL. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with the photo. The shoot had some issues due to a lighting issue and I was forced to use harsh undiffused lighting that showed off parts of the client’s oily skin. In post, I worked to edit in a way to minimize those effects the harsh lighting had, and honestly, I think, for that time period, I did a pretty good job. The client was happy with the photo and shared it everywhere.

Now fast forward two years later. In those two years, I have had a lot of practice when it comes to editing, and I have learned new techniques and skills I did not have before. So, the other day I decided to revisit this shoot and see what I could do…

Same photoshoot. Same lighting conditions, but you can see a BIG difference in the editing. Before I relied too much on Lightroom recommendations for editing and didn’t trust my own unique creative skills. Today I rarely use any of Lightroom’s automatic recommendations and adjust and edit the model and the lighting in a way that shows off my unique creative vision for a photo.

So the next time a photographer tells you how many full external hard drives they have…Don’t give them a hard time. There might be a literal work of art in there, patiently waiting for the artist to learn a few new skills.