So the photo shoot has ended and you have downloaded your images. Are you still a Photographer or do you become an Editor??

I am curious what your thoughts are on editing. How do you approach it? What is your process? For clarification – I am not talking Photoshop, post processing, etc. I’m curious what your mind-set is when you look at your images and decide what you cut. Out of 100 images, how many do you save?

Can you sever the emotional tie to your work when you decide what to cut? This is the hardest part for me.

Take my post A Love Affair with Monet – I fell into that trap. Looking at it now, I see images that I should have cut to make the “Best of the Best” stand out more. But my obsessive love for waterlilies got in the way.

   

The two photos are both in my gallery on A Love Affair with Monet. Looking at it now I would choose to keep the image on the left and remove the image on the right. My mind-set at the time of culling was – they both give just a bit different perspective or dimension. Looking at it now, they are not different enough.

Same with the two images below. The one on the left is the show stopper. The one on the right is just good.

  

By becoming a better Editor, it would seem that the benefit in future would be the ability to mentally edit yourself before you press the shutter button.

I really feel that knowing how to edit yourself is crucial to showing the best of your best. By taking yourself out of the equation and looking at your work objectively, you cut many more photos than you would by looking at them as a photographer. Look at your work as a client.

This is my goal this month – to really be objective with all images, yes, even the waterlilies.