Culling

It was a day when I took several photographers out for a small photo workshop. Rather than drive, I decided to take the metro, which conveniently dropped me off at Union Station, a beautiful and iconic railway station built in 1926. It is located blocks away from City Hall, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, and Olvera Street.

I directed the photographers to wander about Olvera Street, which is home to some of the city’s oldest buildings, dating back to when California was still part of Mexico. Though it caters to countless tourists, it is still a thriving community of Latino immigrants. In the neighborhood is a Catholic church with a beautiful courtyard, where I have witnessed many baptisms, weddings, and quinceañeras.

I was not feeling especially good that day as I was recovering from a recent flare up of sciatica. Though I was able to walk short distances again, I had not built up to my usual stamina. I almost cancelled the outing, but I knew that I would do myself no favors by staying home and working at the computer. It would be good to get out, socialize, and hopefully make a few images.

I walked down the center of the main corridor that is Olvera Street, whose spine is made up of vendors selling colorful piñatas, peasant garb, maracas, oversized sombreros, pottery, bull horns, and sweets. Aromas emanated from the several restaurants that are located there, triggering my appetite.

I felt the need to sit down and I found an empty bench. As I did, I saw a vendor across from me who had positioned two American flags hanging from the roofline. They were there to provide shade.

I noticed the clouds in the sky, the various rooflines, and a vertical row of hats. I was particularly struck by the quality of light. The sun produced strong, hard shadows. While they obscured the details within the vendors’ stations, they made the shapes and patterns more pronounced. I fully recognized the potential of the scene.

Without rising from my seat, I figured out what my overall composition needed to be. I also determined that I wanted to purposely bias my exposure for the highlights and allow the shadows to go to complete black to emphasize the contrast. I was already thinking of the photograph as a black-and-white image.

Once I figured out my overall composition, I knew I needed some human figures within the frame to complete the shot. As peopled walked past, I examined how the light fell on them. I discerned that when people walked from left to right, their faces were better illuminated by the sun, and when they walked in the opposite direction, their faces were often obscured by shadow. I figured out approximately where I wanted a person (or people) to be in order to balance out with everything I had already positioned within the composition.

As people passed by, I made photographs, many of which did not work. Sometimes people were not in the right position; other times they were clustered too close together. Sometimes my timing was just off. But with each exposure, I had a keener sense of what I needed and where I needed it to be.

A group of mariachis walked into the scene from the left, but as much as I would have loved for them to complete my frame, they were walking too close together. The image I captured failed to clearly define them. It just did not work.

Moments later, one of those same mariachis walked back through the scene, now by himself and moving in the opposite direction. I knew he was exactly what I was looking for. I made two frames, the second of which perfectly situated him between the two flags. The strong graphic of his hat created a dramatic visual draw because of its brightness and contrast, and it served as the perfect anchor for the image. The presence of the accordion in his hands provided the gesture that completed the story of who he was and what role he played in this classic location.

My Personal Culling Process

Culling refers to the practice of browsing through images and selecting the best photographs from a shoot or assignment. Different photographers have different approaches for doing this, and the process I describe in this chapter is my personal approach. Feel free to adopt any or all of the steps that I explain here as part of your own workflow.

Adobe Lightroom, despite its recent improvements, can be slow to render images. So unless you have a newer computer that performs speedily, you may want to consider investing in Photo Mechanic, which provides the fastest means by which to cull through imagery. I find it invaluable when having to sort through hundreds of images from a shoot. Photo Mechanic can communicate with Lightroom so that your rankings translate from one to the other. The only exception to this is the pick flag, so if you do use Photo Mechanic, you should use a color ranking, such as green or yellow, to mark which images you have selected as part of your first pass.

The First Pass

Once I download my photographs to my computer, I sort through my images to determine which images have proved the most successful. Though I primarily use Photo Mechanic and Adobe Lightroom, the principles I share with you can be applied to any photo software that offers a ranking and rating system. As long as you can quickly move from image to image and rate them in one form or another, the information shared here should apply. The following instructions reference my approach using Adobe Lightroom Classic.

When I look at images on Instagram or on a photographer’s website, I flick from image to image, waiting for something to arrest my attention. This is the same approach I follow when sorting through my own images for the first time. Using the Library module in Lightroom, I browse from image to image, assigning a rank to those that peak my interest. In Lightroom, I assign a pick flag by pressing the P key on my keyboard. I then move to the next image by clicking on my keyboard’s right arrow key.

By quickly culling through the images in this way, I view my photographs from a point of view that is as objective as possible. I may want to linger and explore individual photographs, or even begin post-processing them, but I resist the temptation. I want to pare down my imagery to a manageable amount first, and this is just the first step in that process.

If I have practiced actively seeing while shooting, I usually know which images I want to initially consider. The photographs that I know do not work, I pass over. If there are images that are very similar, and I am not sure which is better, I simply assign the pick flag and keep moving through the photographs. I can determine which is the better image during a second or third pass. For my first pass, I want to get through all the photographs as quickly as possible.

Once I have completed the first pass through my images and assigned them a basic rating, I filter out the other images so that I see only my selects. To do this, I remain in the Library module and press the backslash key on my keyboard to open the Library Filter bar at the top of the screen. I then click on Attribute, which reveals the various rating methods including flags, stars, and colors. Because I used the pick flag for my first pass, I click the pick flag icon, which filters through all the images I am currently looking at and edits out all the images to which I have not assigned a pick flag. This is my first pass.

Before sorting through these images again, I create a collection of the first pass images. To begin this process, I remain in the Library module and move to the far left of the screen where my Collections tab is located. I click on the plus sign to the right of it, select Create Collection Set from the menu, and give the collection set a name that reflects the subject of the shoot. This creates a parent folder (collection set) where each pass of my images will be gathered into separate subfolders (collections), providing me with a single location to sort through the various stages of my culling process.

I will then select all (Command + A) the images that are currently in view and which are flagged in the Library module. I move the cursor to the far left of the screen where my Collections tab is located, click on the plus sign to the right of it, and select Create Collection. In the Create Collection dialog, I check the box next to Inside a Collection Set and select the collection set I created for this particular shoot. I will name this group 1st pass and click Create. This folder will contain all the images to which I have assigned a flag rating, and will be nested inside the collection set I selected.

The Second Pass

It is at this point that I look through images from the shoot and select an anchor image. This is the one image that I believe is the standout image of the shoot. It is the photograph that I compare the other photographs against while considering another level of ranking.

After completing the first pass, it is relatively easy to find this singular anchor image, to which I apply a single star rating. The anchor image has then been assigned both a pick flag and a single star rating.

While still in the Library module, I select the anchor image, and then press the C key on the keyboard. This launches the Compare View, in which you will see two screens. The anchor image (the Select) appears on the left and the next photograph in the collection (the Candidate) appears on the right. Hitting the right arrow key cycles through each remaining photograph. I press the left arrow key to go in the other direction.

The question I ask myself at this stage of culling is whether the second image I am considering is comparable in quality and content to the anchor image. If the answer is no, I continue on to the next photograph. If the answer is yes, I will single-click on the image on the right and assign it a single star. Now two images have been flagged and possess a single star.

This is, of course, a very subjective decision that is based on more than just how effectively I composed using the visual draws or whether I captured a great gesture. I am now measuring the image in a more emotional, intuitive way. By comparing my images to the anchor image, which I know is the best image of the shoot, I have to consider more than whether an image is technically sound, which the majority of images in my first pass should be. This is more of a gut reaction to the photographs, made easier because I have pared down the images to a manageable amount.

Choosing Among Like Images

As I move through this culling process, I may find that in my first pass, I selected a sequence of images that are very similar to each other. They may possess only small differences in lighting or composition. To narrow my choice, I will return to the Grid View in the Library module and select all the similar images that I have flagged. I then press the N key to launch Lightroom’s Survey View, which displays large thumbnails of the selected images.

I evaluate and compare each version of the image and when I find the one that I believe is the weakest, I click on the X icon that appears in the lower-right corner of the displayed image. This image will be removed from the Survey View. The remaining images may shift slightly in position and possibly become larger in appearance. I continue to compare and contrast the photographs until I have selected a single photograph. I assign that final image a single star. Once I have finished evaluating this group of images and assigned one of the images a star, I move on to the next similar group of images and continue the process.

When I am finished assigning star ratings, I return to the Grid View, click on Attribute in the Library Filter bar at the top of the screen, and click on the single star icon. Only those images that have received a single star will be displayed. I then select all the thumbnails, create a new collection, and name it 2nd Pass. In the Create Collection dialog, I make sure to click on the checkbox next to Inside a Collection Set, and then select the collection set I created earlier from the drop-down menu.

I now have both a first pass and second pass edit in my collection set. I will see an image count to the right of each collection and there should be a marked decrease in the number of images from the first pass to the second.

The Third Pass

Though I am sorting through fewer images on my third pass, I sometimes find this phase of the culling process the most difficult. This requires me to go deep into the weeds of what differentiates one image from another to settle on which ones are really the best. However, I avoid worrying about this too much. The great thing about this process is that I can always revisit my choices later. This is one of the reasons I create collections for each phase of my culling process; I can always return to any phase of this process and revisit the images to determine whether I made a mistake or overlooked an image.

That said, I challenge you to make those difficult choices and keep the process moving. If you make the mistake of getting stuck on an image for too long, you will likely not be able to get out of the hole that you are digging for yourself. Part of the culling and editing process is developing your ability to make these hard choices. Though you may not have a lot of confidence as you begin this process, your confidence will increase and you will develop a clearer vision of your own photography.

With this third pass, I will assign a second star to the images I choose and organize them into a collection of images that I label 3rd Pass. I again use the Compare and Survey Views in Lightroom to determine which images deserve a second star rating. I find that the Survey View is incredibly helpful when I am comparing one image against another.

By this time, my goal is to pare my images down to what I call the core eight. These are the best of the best. This pass really forces me to consider every aspect of an image, including the technical quality, the composition, and my emotional reaction to it.

I decided on eight images because I imagined laying out a mini portfolio with a lead image, a closing image, and three sets of paired images in between. I found that if I could create a strong mini portfolio with eight photographs, I could later expand from there to any number of images, but I would always reference back to the established strength of my initial eight-image portfolio.

It is usually at this point that I begin to consider how well I did with my shoot. It is these select images that really reflect everything I was trying to do. These are the photographs that truly reflect my abilities, skill, and thoughtful seeing. If I passed judgement based on every single image I made, I would likely not think much of myself.

But by filtering through all the “work images”—the photographs that I had to make to get to the photographs that really worked—I am able to eliminate the wheat from the chafe. These final photographs are the ones that truly represent my vision and my skill.

When working for a client, these are usually the images that I suggest my client consider as the best from the shoot. They might not agree, which is usually the case, but I can confidently explain why I believe these images to be the best.

For my personal work, these are the photographs I choose from when making prints, posting on my website or Instagram, or using photographs in a book or magazine article. The rest of the images are relegated to a hard drive not to be seen by anyone.

If you find yourself having to go through a fourth or even a fifth pass when culling through your images, you are likely not making the hard choices. You are only making more work for yourself. You want to move through images as quickly and easily as you do when you’re viewing other people’s images on Instagram or Facebook.

Keep the Bad Pictures

Though I will delete images that are severely out of focus or badly exposed, I usually keep all the images from my shoot. I do this because these images provide me valuable information that helps me to improve my skills as a photographer.

As I go through the process of culling and comparing images, I am assessing photographs for what makes them work and what makes them fail. I am noticing the small and large differences relative to the visual draws, as well as my own critical choices at the moment of exposure. I am learning from my own vision.

Doing this has taught me valuable lessons, including the importance of sticking to a scene long enough to exhaust all the possibilities. Mistakes in exposure or focus have taught me the importance of nailing my technical settings before I expose a single frame. Even photographs that failed completely have a lesson to teach for the next time I go out to photograph a similar scene. The process of culling through my images demands that I evaluate the photographs with the care and consideration that I applied when originally making the images.