How Long Do Pro Photographers Hold On toTheir Images?

I often see people asking how long they should hold on to their images for oh should I delete them after a year and they often will refer to the terms of their contracts with their clients you should never delete your images just never this is your body of work this is your archive you should hold on to your work your work defines who you are if you look at photographers who have since passed on who have had a significant impact on the world of Photography you will often see that there is a foundation in their name and that Foundation holds on to the copyright of that photographer's work this is something that you should consider for yourself not necessarily establishing a foundation but think about the fact this is your body of work I would never hear an architect say at what point should I demolish all of my older buildings you built that thing you you captured that image you took that photo you should you should hang on to it but there are more significant and important reasons why you should never delete your images and the primary one for me is that who I was as a photographer 10 years ago is not at all the photographer that I am today I am 10 years better more experienced I have a better sense of who I am as a photographer and the photographer that I was 10 years ago doesn't exist anymore I I still respect that photographer from 10 years ago but that's not who I am I'm more mature in my taste my taste has changed it has evolved but also if I look back over my work from 10 years ago it's much more technical it's not as emotion driven it's not as expression driven it's very much driven about did I get the lighting right did I place the light in the right place was it at the right angle and when you start out as a photographer it's important to think about all these things it's important to Workshop your way through them and then to get to a point where that stuff doesn't matter as much unless it's significant to defining your style of Photography who who you are as a photographer there are images from a shoot that I did a number of years ago with my friend Sheila that when I did them completely disregarded them I never deleted them thankfully but when I went and looked back when I was updating my portfolio about a year and a half ago I was like that image this image is so captivating and striking to me it's so interesting to me as a photographer that it became a primary image in my portfolio but when I took that image it was like ah this is this isn't working this isn't good it's not a good image and uh I'm just let's just uh forget about it but now it means something to me now it's interesting now I would print it out and frame it and put it on a wall that's how much I think that photo is great but the photographer I was when I took that image would not see the value of that work regular viewers of the channel will know that I recently had my first solo exhibit as a as a photographic artist and that would all consisted of archival work and the majority of those images were images that when I went back through were not images that I had originally selected they were images that I thought you know probably at like at the time were probably not worth even considering but now when I was putting that collection together they spoke exactly to the theme of the collection and they were exactly what I wanted you know it's not too long ago when uh all all photography was done on film and you had negatives and sheets and in plastic sheets that would go into three ring binders or or they would go into file folders and you would store them in filing cabinets and you would hold on to all of your negatives some photographers have rooms of filing cabinets full of negatives they don't delete their archives they didn't just throw out all of their negatives and go I'm done with the shoot I'm never going to need these negatives again they held on to them because those negatives have value your images have value whether they're film or whether they're digital the fact that they're digital now is so much greater for us as photographers because storage is abundant and inexpensive I have 12 years of images stored on this computer back here on a hard drive inside that computer hundreds of thousands of images and I would never consider not having backups of those and and making sure that all of my images were safe because that is what is valuable to me as photographers we carry a special kind of Burden if you've been doing this for a few years you probably will have experienced clients coming to you and saying we just lost someone do you have an image of my grandpa at the wedding do you have an image of my son who passed away in a car accident the image that you take of someone it might be the image that's used at their it might be the image that is used with their obituary in a newspaper so we have this special burden that we carry with us to create images that people will want to use to remember people by when a celebrity passes away often you'll see magazines on the shelves an entire magazine devoted to that celebrity that's just full of images of That Celebrity so that's why I say that we have a special kind of Burden as photographers to respect the people that we photograph so don't delete your images and if you want to know how to keep your images safe forever watch this video right here like this video if you found it helpful and consider subscribing to this channel to see more videos from me thank you very much take care