Hi Everyone,
I started offering photography services to my immediate circle for their art projects, modeling endeavors, etc. I am new to this starting only earlier this year.
The question I have for seasoned professionals and semi professionals is: do you keep ALL the photos you take of a given shoot? For example, I shot my friend, and we took maybe 500+ photos during the shoot. We sat down together another day and identified like 60 that she wants sent to her of that shoot (no edits, she’s doing that herself/outsourcing it).
The question is: what the heck do I do with the other 440 photos? I have like 15TB of space, so I can keep all the shots with no issue, but this surely isn’t sustainable forever. I come from an Engineering background where archiving files is the gospel (where I may need access to any given revision at any instant) but this might not be the case once my initial 60 “keepers” were identified and sent.
Thoughts and feedback?
Nooooo way. They get a sample board of the images shot, and once the client receives their edits it is their responsibility to save them. Make sure it states that in your contracts. I only hold onto photos that I love & want to share on socials or my portfolio- or turn into prints.
It’s a matter of personal preference if you want to archive all of your past photos for personal use.
Personally, the longer I have done this for work the less clutter I want to deal with. I shoot a lot of film & I do hold onto physical negatives from some shoots, but I don’t have that same sort of attachment to my digital work. All of this is to say, it’s really just up to you 😅 you’ll figure it out as you go.