The Keeper Quotient and Artistic Growth

I’ve been asked, on a number of occasions, what my “keeper rate” is.  For those unfamiliar with the jargon, keeper rate refers to the percentage of images produced on a given shoot that are worth retaining.  The truth of the matter is, I don’t know what my personal ratio is and what’s more…I’m not sure that it makes much difference.

Ask ten different landscape photographers and you’ll likely receive ten different notions regarding what a good percentage of “quality” images one should expect from a different shoot.  Of course, it helps that each individual has a different definition of what constitutes a quality image.  A standout for one person may be ho hum to someone else.

Bisti Arch Moonrise, Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

But it’s also worth noting that, when photographers discuss this subject they’re often talking about different things, sometimes without acknowledging as much.  For example, the notion of “keepers” (i.e. good enough to hang onto) is often unintentionally confounded with KEEPERS (i.e. images so good they’re immediate candidates for portfolio expansion).  Obviously, the former is considerably more commonplace than the latter.

In thinking about this subject with regard to my own photography–having already conceded that I don’t know what my keeper rate is–I realized that I kind of subconsciously divide images into three categories.  The first category is junk–material that will experience a speedy interfacing with the delete button.

Roaring Fork, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee

The second category is made up of images that I think are worth holding onto and working up.  The standard I’ve applied is, if I can imagine a print of the image in question hanging on my wall, it’s worth keeping.  It’s not that I necessarily ever will actually print the image, or that I have a particular desire to have a print of said image actually hanging on the wall but I wouldn’t (hypothetically) object to hanging one.  These images are post-processed and end up on my Web site.  (Perhaps that–placing these Category 2 images on my site–isn’t the best idea–a topic best revisited on another day.)

The third and final category is that group of images that I’m so enthralled with that I want to print the image, and the sooner the better.  (This group obviously will be post-processed and posted on my Web site as well.)  I think of this group of images as being of portfolio quality.  This is a much smaller collection than group #2–I’d guess, off the top of my head, something on the order of 1/10 to 1/20 the size, and very possibly even tinier than that.  It’s at least as common as not that a day’s venture into the field produces no such images and it’s extremely rare to procure more than one on a single photo shoot, at least in my experience.

Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park, Washington

It should probably go without saying but I’ll say it anyway since it’s already a well-established theme on this blog:  while the criteria that divides these categories from one another is essentially static, the substance that gives life to each tier is dynamic.  In other words, what I consider “portfolio quality” today isn’t necessarily the same as it was five or six years ago.  Yesterday’s portfolio image might be today’s category two placeholder.

Standards often change over time; it’s inevitable, I think, to have a fluid barometer, particularly as it applies to one’s own work.  In fact, it’s arguably necessary to be able to critically reassess one’s own standards–and how well output is meeting those standards–on an ongoing basis to be able to evolve artistically.  I’m not sure that this process needs to be a premeditated, planned exercise, but it should, I submit, be something that’s part of one’s environmental backdrop.  Retaining an ongoing sense of one’s own benchmark for excellence–and how well one is measuring up to that grade–can’t be a negative formula for aesthetic progression.

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