As I have been learning to be a photographer, I’ve had it drummed into my head to back up my files. I even witnessed a great reason why — a couple of my friends and mentors re-used a CF card without first dumping it, thus losing an entire shoot (this of course back in the day when the cards were astronomically priced and therefore, in some instances, shared). So I have my photographic files on at least three drives and, since two of those drives are redundant, it’s technically five.

What do I keep? Anything resembling a picture. The blurry stuff I usually delete in camera. I also don’t keep the referee-butt images (which I call “doing the butt”) that feed my photographic fish stories (I had this award-winning shot, but a referee ran into the frame as I squeezed the shutter).

In my recent post, Girl-Wide View, I outlined my mission in photographing girl’s basketball players and how I, in the main, try to avoid the “funny face factor” in order to show girls in a positive light. Hanging on to what essentially would be outtakes in this context seems a waste, right? Not unless you consider a photographer’s mission is to tell and illustrate stories.
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