Picture Pleasure Score

One of the activities I have undertaken in this early stage of retirement is to sort through thousands of slides and prints I have taken over the years. While I see the benefits of preserving a lot of these pictures, I am also convinced that I need to throw away a substantial part of this collection. The question is how do I make decisions on what to keep and what to discard.

Being a good engineer, I thought that I should come out with a framework on the merits of old pictures and apply the resulting rules rigorously (and mercilessly). When I started thinking about it, I realized that pictures need to be classified in three different categories before proceeding further: Snapshots, travel pictures, and artistic pictures. I am sure that purists will argue that many pictures are combination of these three. To them, I will reply that think about the most important aspect of your work of creation and treat it like that henceforth. 

On a high level, the purpose of pictures of any of these three categories is to provide pleasure. This pleasure is derived from your own viewing a well as from the reaction of someone you are sharing the picture with. Further, there is a time element involved---the level of pleasure derived in the future is different from that at the moment or soon after the picture is taken.

So far so good.

The real insight I gained is that the three types of pictures have different pleasure characteristics. Let me elaborate.

In my opinion, the snapshots provide highest level of pleasure when they are viewed by you (or family/friends) some years after they are taken. In fact, older they are, more fun it is to look at them. Interestingly, the pleasure level is not that high when you are taking this type of pictures. Also, the reaction of someone else to these pictures, soon after they are taken, is likely to be polite and muted, especially if you inundate them with hundreds of some pictures. This is not a particularly pleasing experience.

At the other end, as far as the artistic pictures are concerned, the biggest pleasure comes while taking them. You are in a creative zone and the right brain is deeply engaged as you scour the scenery for art worthy captures. If these are good pictures, additional kick comes in when they are shared and you receive praise from those who bother to look at them. However, unlike the snapshots, their value in providing pleasure drops as time goes by. Seen ten years later, as you improve your skills and equipment, you may wonder what made you take that old picture. Also, at that point, do not expect any one else to be much interested in these type of pictures.

The travel pictures occupy a place in between the above two.  They are sometimes difficult to take and distract you from enjoying the experience. However, the real pleasure comes when they are shared with folks once you return. The applause you get for your fine photography (and the jealousy it causes---admit it) constitutes the return on your investment of effort. These photos allow you to relive the experience if you view them years later.

The level interest others will show while looking at your travel pictures in the future depends on the content of the picture. If it includes people, the interest level will be high, because they really are snapshots, albeit in a non-local environment. On the other hand, if the picture shows the place you visited, the interest level will reduce as the place starts becoming less exotic. Finally, an artistic travel picture will suffer the same fate as that taken in your backyard, unless it shows some exotic plant or animal.  Overall, I would rate the interest level to be low.

The diagram below summarizes these observations and provides a Picture Pleasure Score for each box on a scale of 1-5.  As you can see, the snapshots age well, while the artistic photos do not. The travel pictures are somewhere in between.

Coming back to the original reason why I created this framework---what should I do with my old pictures---here are the guidelines that can now be derived: Keep a reasonable number of snapshots, keep only a few travel pictures, and throw away almost all of the artistic pictures, which is almost exactly opposite of the value I assign when I take these pictures.