UKH

Lets imagine a scenario...

You come back after a good day out on the hills with ever changing conditions and you’ve got a ton of pictures to go through. You find the best looking ones, flag them, then go and edit them. You dismiss some still, end up with 10ish photos from which you could not tell which one you like the most. 

You’d like to share or print few photos from those ones. What do you do next? 

I have been struggling with this and I don’t know the solution. I sometimes upload more than few, but interestingly enough, different social media sites (UKC/Instagram, for example) will get different results in terms of votes/likes. 

Now, the response on social media is not the most important - I hope no one does it just for the likes on sites instead of enjoying the process itself. The engagement, however, is a good indication of how good the photo is, I think.

I only ever print images I like. More often I dismiss images that my wife and others think are great. I don't care so much about what other people think when I hang it on my wall!

If I'm taking photos for a client - which I used to do - or for our fell running club, I'll have a brief, and work to that.

In personal photography one takes photos for the challenge of capturing something you wanted to make. Not for any other reason. Or at least, I don't. 

It's a good question. What I generally do is ask my wife. Not - well, not just - because a little marital agreement on what gets put on the wall is a good thing, but because she, for whatever reason, sees images very differently from me.  I like this image https://flic.kr/p/QCXXr9 but that's about as far as I go; my wife would like me to get it properly printed and framed. Which is nice of her to say but I think I can do better, and I have a load more shots from that day, some for the bin, others I might process fully.

But I appreciate my wife's input because I know she thinks of these things in a way I just don't. If we both agree, then I'll definitely fire up the printer.

T.

For composition alone, I reckon it's pretty much 'Love at First Sight' and if you have to hmm and aah over a particular photo, then it's probably not as good as you would like it to be.
As for getting different reactions on UKC and Instagram, then that might well be down to the target audience. i.e. on UKC, a photo of someone climbing something hard will almost always get positive votes despite its general photographic merit, but to Instagram users, it's just someone climbing a cliff.

One of my problems is that I often shoot on rapid fire so often have pics milliseconds apart, however generally sharpness of focus etc seperates these, but once you boil down to several good shots, it's normally the one that speaks most to my emotions either the image itself says something or there's more behind getting that image... e.g. I'm fonder of my Kingfisher shot than I perhaps should be because it took me 2 days in a hide to get it: https://www.flickr.com/photos/153777033@N07/44866741692/in/datetaken/

This Shot makes me feel a sort of bleakness: https://www.flickr.com/photos/153777033@N07/25489044268/in/datetaken/

This seems to be popular among friends (and a print requested).... I'm not so sure: https://www.flickr.com/photos/153777033@N07/45942837531/in/datetaken/

It is a good question and a good post. 

Regarding your comment about social media, I find it useful to cast your mind back 20+ years and think "when I get these processed and printed, which ones will I bother putting into an album to show people"

I think this applies just the same way now 

I look at my photos and ask myself "if I show this to a non-halfwit acquaintance and they reasonably ask me why I am showing them this photo, then is it actually a BORING photo?"

This helps to whittle down the selection

Hope that helps. 

In a word 'Time' is what I would recommend.

Flickr is a very good resource. Use Flickr 'Groups' by uploading to a group which is relevant for the type of image you are producing. That way any likes will at least have some context or relevance. Though this can be skewed if the image makes 'Explore' and if you pick up many followers. But in time you will get a general feedback as to what works for them. 

In that time (image on Flickr say a week or two), let the image sit on the proverbial back burner of your mind, then revisit those images and curate with your gut feeling.

Ive posted stuff on Flickr that I thought was good, but received little in the way of likes, however after repeated personal visits to the image on my screen I stuck with my gut feeling and to this day still like the image. This can be due to 'in the moment' feelings not conveyed by the image that only you know about.

Learn to stand by your image, it does not matter if other folk dont like it. Your instinct took that picture give it a chance and revisit those images.

One other thing Flickr highlights is that theirs always someone out there that likes the most obscure image and its at that point you question your own ability 'To See'

mike hike

In response to your original post, I think that I often know which is the best picture I have taken in a day's picture making. Sometimes there are a few versions of it that I can process to get that 'perfect one' but I know the image I wanted to create. This may sound arrogant but I rely on my own judgement to identify the 'best' photos I have taken. However I often find that they are not the 'most liked' pictures if I share them on the various social media or photo-sharing platforms.

I would defend this position on the grounds that the ones I identify as 'best' are those that most effectively convey what I saw and visualised at the time of making. One of my 'best' pictures is of a winter scene featuring only a stone wall and clump of trees in an otherwise white setting. It is an ancient burial ground and to me it conveys that bleakness perfectly. Few people like this minimalist image but my two mates who were then when we saw it both relate very closely to it as a faithful rendition of the atmosphere at the time. I think the great picture makers are able to convey the feeling they experienced when in the presence of such a scene to an audience that never saw it - I have yet to get there.

One process that I use that is worth sharing is my 'annual review'. It started with slides many years ago but I have sustained & adapted it to the digital platform. Throughout the year I select my favourite/best images from each set of pictures or month's work and store them in a 'Best of 2018' folder. This usually ends up with about 300 pictures - interestingly it was the same when I did slides. Then - and this is the fun part - I narrow them down to a 'Best of Best of 2018' selection. This is always carried out in that doldrum time between Christmas & New Year and requires a substantial meal and a good bottle of wine. That heady combination prepares me well for the editing process, the aim of which is to get to about 50 pictures that sum up the years work. These are put in a folder that sits on my desktop for frequent perusal/enjoyment. I should say that one benefit of this process is that I re-view the images I have made over the year and it often leads to learning about how to improve my photography which can't be a bad thing. 

Does anyone else out there have a similar review process?

An interesting thread to me considering how much time I spend trying to evaluate and improve my own work. It is probably true that you know your very best pictures at the moment of taking and at first viewing subsequently. Does that mean junk the rest and only go out in perfect conditions? Absolutely not. I am in love with the process and it is addictive.

I too am arrogant enough to trust my own judgement of my own work. I find Flickr voting hilarious and it is evident that your competence in social networking is of far more value than photographic skill and judgement. Are you even aiming to be popular? When I look at what music, movies etc is popular these days I am saddened. However it is a useful BS filter which can weed out those pictures which really will bore people.

Without doubt the most useful aid in evaluating your work is time. It is all too easy to have too strong a relationship with a picture you improved vastly with an hour's post processing. Give it a week or two and you have forgotten the workload and the picture begins to look very ordinary.

So like Keith I have a cascading system of folders. The aim is actually to delete pictures before they pass on to the next folder. I will review the pictures multiple times before they pass down the line and I may make multiple variations of some pictures in post processing and see which settles with me over time.  I like Keith's idea of best of the year and will certainly try that.

One likely explanation for the differences in peoples reactions to photos on different sites will be what devices people are viewing them on. The one which work on a mobile phone screen are often quite different to those you'd pick on a big, high quality monitor and then I guess different again for stuff like big wall decorations.

FB & Instragam would I presume be viewed mostly on mobile phones, not so sure about UKC.

I've done the yearly summary for a bit. A nice reminder to keep up morale during the dark months.

Flickr is a photo site, so a high percentage of voters are photographers who appreciate a good photo from a photographer's technical point of view (focus, depth of field, composition, light etc.)

UKC is a climbers' site so a high percentage of voters appreciate the subject matter more (route, mountain, climber, climber position, climber facial expression).

Facebook is full of one's friends so who knows the voting preferences!

Personally, I like my shots which look similar to ones I like which others have taken. I will sometimes see an opportunity and think 'that looks like that shot of the guys on mount xxx SW ridge' and shoot it.  I'm cautious of ones which have limited significance to others (a bit like an in-joke). I never delete anything unless it's rubbish (out of focus, blurred etc.) as I never know what will be important in 50 years' time. Today's photo of my mate in front of a cliff may not be exciting now, but in 50 years' time it may be a great image of the clothing & equipment of the time. The person in the background may not be what I wanted, but when they die and it's the only photo of them in their thirties it suddenly becomes valuable.

Personally I always try and wait a couple of days before going through a set of photos and flagging/rejecting shots (aside from OOF ones). 

It means I tend to come at it from an editing/printing POV rather than a reminiscing approach. e.g. the day after a wedding (Uncle Bob'ing - I'm not a pro!), I'd still be aglow with happy memories of certain moments, but a week later, I can look at them critically and say - "yes, it's a good cake-cutting shot, but actually there's an annoying child in the background and the mother-of-the-bride looks furious."

Even-more-so when going for a specific feel of a shot; knowing I took a particular shot because the light was hitting a certain spot in a certain way tends to make me want to instinctively flag it. Whereas a week later, I'll look at it and say "i can see what I was going for, but it didn't work because of X and Y".

Further to my comments earlier - would anyone like to explain the voting on this? https://www.flickr.com/photos/peterisshaw/37322338264/in/pool-beautiful-fli...