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.
