When it comes to productivity, w.r.t. to finished work (prints in my case) I get the feeling I am at the very bottom of the spectrum. For instance, in 2007, I only managed to produce 8 new prints. Many of those prints, by the way, were based on slides exposed a year or two earlier. Although I am in no hurry to chrun our a very large number of new prints each year, I am often discouraged by my slow rate of progress.
I am curious to know how other NPN photographers fare in this department. What does your tally of finished work per year look like?
I processed 179 separate new RAW image files in the last four days, and four print orders today.
Last year was a slow shooting year for me with taking both summer and winter off, but I probably processed about 1500 - 2000 new Raw image files, and scanned through another 3000 or so of my transparencies. Fortunately, the slides are much easier since I already know how the image is supposed to look & the scanner does a great job on getting rid of dust specs.
But keep in mind, I'm not trying to be an "artist" who will painstakingly work over every spot of detail in an image. I'll do that for print orders to some extent, but I get grumbly if it takes me too much time to work on any given image.
Posted by Zack Schnepf on April 4, 2008 at 8:38 PM
This year I produced about 75 finished fine art master print files. That was working from the last 2 years of files though, and I only produced that number because I was preparing for a series of shows this summer. Typically I would produce fewer. Being all digital, and doing all my own printing probably helps speed up the process for me. I'm sure there are people who are producing well more than me though.
Stock files are a whole different ball game, I will produce 5-10 times that number for stock use.
I think all told last year, I produced about 35 prints for sales, competitions and exhibitions. I produced substantially more than that early in the year when I was assembling a physical portfolio, but I don't count that since it's not going to be repeated. In any event, I suspect I'm in the lowest 10th percentile in this regard amongst those on this site; I don't display/sell at art fairs and this is very much a part-time avocation for me, not a full-time vocation.
Almost none of my work is for print production these days, so post-production is minimal when I've done my job at the time of capture. On the other hand, or should I say "at the next desk," my wife's studio and location work is almost entirely for print production. An 8 hour shooting day usually translates into an extra 4 hours of processing for prints. Most of her work is cleaning up and retouching, then submitting the files to our lab for printing. On average I'd call it 16 images processed in 4 hours or so. Like me, the more she can do at the time of capture, the less there is to do at the end of a long day of shooting.
Posted by Richard Wong on April 5, 2008 at 3:00 AM
The number would depend on what your goals are. I'm like Gary though less prolific. I've processed about 2,000 RAW images in the past year, not counting all the resizing for submission which is very time consuming. i try to get the file right the first time because I almost never revisit files unless it needs to reproduced really large.
I think the answer you get is quite dependent on what the photographer is creating images for. The "fine art" tog is going to typically have a much lower production rate. The stock shooter is going to be extremely prolific, as stock is much more a numbers game.
On a 2 or 3 day trip, I might get 10-20 images suited for stock submission, but if I am extremely fortunate, one or two "portfolio" images. In the course of a year, if I can add 20 images to my website, I consider that an incredibly productive year. 10 or 12 is probably more like it.
It also depends on whether or not you are a full-time photographer. I am not and I only get 3 weeks vacation per year, so I am limited to that, plus weekends I manage to get away. I can't possible compete with someone who is on the road 150-200 days in terms of photo productivity.
I have no idea how many images I process in a year but I would guess the number would be somewhat highers than yours - maybe 20-30 new prints a year processed. I process many more for web use than I do for prints however.
Last 18 months I readied over 3500 images (some for my files, some for distribution to my agents, some for print making) I also managed to catch up on some backlogged keywording.
Again, it really depends on the end use of the image for me. For prints of images destined for personal use/print sales (the "artistic merit" category - yeah, whatever that means), I added about 25 images last year. Those I'll spend up to a couple of hours on to get right and consider the time spent to be a non-issue. It is never of a serious nature, since anything poorly composed/exposed/conceived never gets to this point anyway. More just trying to be sure that the details are exactly how I want them, cropping is how I want them, the initial scan is right (if it came from a 4x5), what is going on in my head matches what is coming out on the printer, etc. This process is taking longer as I get better at it
On the other hand, I also shoot for stock, especially insects that move and flowers that blow. Those I can process relatively quickly - if it isn't right out of the camera, it gets deleted. I consider anything that potentially will take more than 7-10 minutes to process not to be worth looking at in this context, except when they potentially first paragraph images. The first paragraph is a very, very tiny subset of these images.
I think Harley and others are on to the right answer... it depends. First and foremost it depends on what your goals and objectives are - and they will most certainly be different person to person. So really, I'm not sure that anyone's answers would be your answer.
IMHO, unless you're shooting stock, or have an Art director/buyer requesting X number of images per month/year, I don't see the need to even track "productivity." What if you had produced 10 prints? or 20? Is it just the number? What if you only produced 1 print, and that one print sold for $10,000... would you consider that productive?
Years and years ago when shooting 35mm, I use to grade my images and track how many "A's," "B's," "C's," etc..... "F's" went in the garbage can. I use to count and try and raise the percentage of "A's".... and to what end? Funny thing was, when I quit doing that... my photography got better. Imagine that.
Just keep doing what you're doing. You've got a great thing going with your projects and themes and personally, I think they will serve you very well.
2007 was a very slow year for me. I added 73 master files to my catalog. For comparison, in 2006 I added 182.
These are ones I consider worthy of fine prints. I process a much larger number for general submissions and other uses (I wouldn't quite call it "stock" since I don't sell them as such).
How different everyone works, eh?
We expose ca. 2000 sheets of film a year (all landscapes) and expect to keep a rough 75% of them. Our rule of thumb is to produce 1 image a month (each of us) worth hanging on a galleries wall. (we can't do it each month 'course, but over a long period of time, that is) We don't make any print masterfiles or whatever unless there is an exhibition coming up or someone orders a print.
We do make decent 60MB flatbed scans right away, though, just to have sg to work with. (Epson VF 750)
Verena
I am in league with you. My new iamge rate is very low. Last year I added only about 10 new images to my portfolio and of those only five have made it to print for sale in my shows. So far this year, only one new image that I am still working on to get it looking as I want. I don't sell stock, so I don't have to produce as much.
Discussion
15 repliesI am curious to know how other NPN photographers fare in this department. What does your tally of finished work per year look like?
Regards.
Last year was a slow shooting year for me with taking both summer and winter off, but I probably processed about 1500 - 2000 new Raw image files, and scanned through another 3000 or so of my transparencies. Fortunately, the slides are much easier since I already know how the image is supposed to look & the scanner does a great job on getting rid of dust specs.
But keep in mind, I'm not trying to be an "artist" who will painstakingly work over every spot of detail in an image. I'll do that for print orders to some extent, but I get grumbly if it takes me too much time to work on any given image.
Stock files are a whole different ball game, I will produce 5-10 times that number for stock use.
On a 2 or 3 day trip, I might get 10-20 images suited for stock submission, but if I am extremely fortunate, one or two "portfolio" images. In the course of a year, if I can add 20 images to my website, I consider that an incredibly productive year. 10 or 12 is probably more like it.
It also depends on whether or not you are a full-time photographer. I am not and I only get 3 weeks vacation per year, so I am limited to that, plus weekends I manage to get away. I can't possible compete with someone who is on the road 150-200 days in terms of photo productivity.
On the other hand, I also shoot for stock, especially insects that move and flowers that blow. Those I can process relatively quickly - if it isn't right out of the camera, it gets deleted. I consider anything that potentially will take more than 7-10 minutes to process not to be worth looking at in this context, except when they potentially first paragraph images. The first paragraph is a very, very tiny subset of these images.
I think Harley and others are on to the right answer... it depends. First and foremost it depends on what your goals and objectives are - and they will most certainly be different person to person. So really, I'm not sure that anyone's answers would be your answer.
IMHO, unless you're shooting stock, or have an Art director/buyer requesting X number of images per month/year, I don't see the need to even track "productivity." What if you had produced 10 prints? or 20? Is it just the number? What if you only produced 1 print, and that one print sold for $10,000... would you consider that productive?
Years and years ago when shooting 35mm, I use to grade my images and track how many "A's," "B's," "C's," etc..... "F's" went in the garbage can. I use to count and try and raise the percentage of "A's".... and to what end? Funny thing was, when I quit doing that... my photography got better. Imagine that.
Just keep doing what you're doing. You've got a great thing going with your projects and themes and personally, I think they will serve you very well.
Lon
These are ones I consider worthy of fine prints. I process a much larger number for general submissions and other uses (I wouldn't quite call it "stock" since I don't sell them as such).
Guy
We expose ca. 2000 sheets of film a year (all landscapes) and expect to keep a rough 75% of them. Our rule of thumb is to produce 1 image a month (each of us) worth hanging on a galleries wall. (we can't do it each month 'course, but over a long period of time, that is) We don't make any print masterfiles or whatever unless there is an exhibition coming up or someone orders a print.
We do make decent 60MB flatbed scans right away, though, just to have sg to work with. (Epson VF 750)
Verena
I am in league with you. My new iamge rate is very low. Last year I added only about 10 new images to my portfolio and of those only five have made it to print for sale in my shows. So far this year, only one new image that I am still working on to get it looking as I want. I don't sell stock, so I don't have to produce as much.