11 reasons to re-evaluate all your photo archive

Most photographers have a large archive of images on their hard drives and a personal workflow to manage it all. Besides rating and editing new batches of photos, I feel everybody should also get into the habit of going back to past images and re-evaluating some of them. You might be surprised of what you might find!

This topic seems to be neglected by most photographers, confident that their initial impressions and selections are the best ones. It’s not always the case. Here are some important reasons for you to go “back in time” and re-consider images that you put aside the first time around:

1. Great images you might have missed

Unless you have a lot of experience, it takes (a long) time to view your own images objectively. When you shoot a new batch of pictures and go through your routine workflow steps, you always reach the crucial point of making proper selections/ratings. However, whether you know it or not, your decisions are affected by your own enthusiasm (you are thrilled you managed to get a difficult shot but which is not actually that good). The stories inside your head may not always get understood by viewers of your portfolio. That’s why you need to let some time for the images to “breathe”, to get past that initial enthusiasm in order to view them more like a stranger. As a matter of fact, you should consider adding a new step in your photography workflow: not seeing your new images for a few days at least. I’ll surely write about this topic in a future post, I find it very important.

Revisiting your old galleries might make you see them from a fresh perspective, you could discover images you ignored in the first place. Try it!

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