Keep an archive

itsjustatank

Hong Kong9148 Posts

October 24 2015 23:03 GMT

Keep an archive

In my previous blog, I talked about self-editing and the importance of only showing your best work with you put together a photoset. In today’s blog, I want to talk about something that is equally important. Do not throw away shots that are usable just because they may not have made it into your initial photoset of an event.

I sure took a lot of photographs in the last half-decade...

Create a personal photo archive, make it easy for yourself to navigate, and have it readily available to you. I can isolate three specific reasons why doing this is a good thing.

First, you may need your old photos sooner rather than later. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked whether I have specific kinds of photos from X event or photos of Y person for publication. Having an archive meant that I was able to fulfill these requests.

Do you have a photo of Silent Wolf playing Melee? Yes, I do.

Second, you can do interesting things with them in the future. You can do year-in-review photo-mashups to re-releases or remixes of your work. Stuff that might not have worked in the past might become relevant to you in the future. It’s your body of work, use it when you need it.

Third, it’s great for putting together your portfolio. Shots that may not have made it into a photoset might still be damn good enough to show off to prospective clients in the future. Make sure you have them available to you when that is the case.

Fourth, and secretly, it’s great for b̶l̶a̶c̶k̶m̶a̶i̶l̶ humor. Don’t throw away your real derpface shots. I keep mine around forever and ever.

I title this one ESPORTS Gothic. Reference for those who don’t get it.

This is another in a blog series dedicated to explaining some of the things that we do as photographers in the esports space. Again, if you found this blog interesting and useful, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

Cross-posted from my personal blog.

Elroi

Sweden5570 Posts

October 26 2015 16:58 GMT

Ill remember that if i ever buy a camera!

That last photo is great by the way.

itsjustatank

Hong Kong9148 Posts

October 27 2015 01:06 GMT

On October 27 2015 01:58 Elroi wrote:
Ill remember that if i ever buy a camera!

That last photo is great by the way.

Thanks! And, yeah, I've been waiting to release that particular photo for a while now. Seemed like a good enough excuse.

LennX

4521 Posts

October 30 2015 17:13 GMT

Can you elaborate more on deciding on usable shots that should be saved in the future? I generally try to keep my photos as small as possible. Normally its around 100 shots for an album, keeping around 300 others that may never see the light of day and deleting the rest.

itsjustatank

Hong Kong9148 Posts

October 31 2015 06:33 GMT

On October 31 2015 02:13 LennX wrote:
Can you elaborate more on deciding on usable shots that should be saved in the future? I generally try to keep my photos as small as possible. Normally its around 100 shots for an album, keeping around 300 others that may never see the light of day and deleting the rest.

Any shot that you could conceive of publishing (because it has an interesting subject and because it is technically competent) but didn't end up publishing because of editorial reasons.

A good example of this would be my shots from MLG Anaheim 2014, when I ended up integrating only a little bit of Smash in the final edit but kept all of the shots I took of the activity throughout because I knew it would be important later as the scene got bigger.

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