Philosophical Photo Question
If a photograph spends its life on a hard disk and is not viewed or shared, does it exist? I’ve had similar thoughts bounce around in my head over the years, but yesterday the thoughts started to coalesce a bit. I have an issue that seems to be getting worse-and-worse over time. That is my massive backlog of photos which have yet to be sorted, processed and posted/printed/shared. Arguably the problem started roughly 38 years ago when I first got a motor drive for my film SLR camera. It was capable of up to 3.5 FPS. However because it was film, it was a bit more self-limiting and the backlog never really grew too much. Then came digital, where photos were (ostensibly) “free”, but at least with my early digital cameras, they were still in the roughly 3FPS range. With early digital storage limits, it was still at least somewhat self-limiting and the backlog issue wasn’t too bad, but was definitely worse than the film days.
Then came my first DSLR, the Nikon D850, which was capable of 7FPS, and then 9FPS with an external battery back. Initially I thought “who needs that high a frame rate” and typically only shot around 3FPS, especially when shooting “slow moving targets” like whales. Later I started to shoot more at 7FPS and even 9FPS, but things were still a bit limited because of digital transfer speeds. You could only shoot that fast for a short period, and then it dropped down to about 3FPS. My backlog started to grow. I still have almost 8,000 photos in my “ToDo folder” from my D850 and I haven’t taken any photos with my D850 since early in 2022.
Then came my first MILC (Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera), the Nikon Z9, capable of 20FPS in RAW and a staggering 120FPS in JPG. Initially I shot primarily at lower speeds, rarely going above about 10FPS. But over time that FPS kept creeping up. I started finding I could get “just the right wing position” of the birds, or “just the right position” for a whale tail and/or picking up some good ID markers in one frame that weren’t present in the previous/following frames. There were still at least some limitations though because the write speeds of the cards couldn’t keep up with the data rate of 20FPS RAW, so eventually it would slow down (thought not by a ton). However modern cards can keep up and I can shoot virtually indefinitely at 20FPS in RAW. The backlog problem has exploded. In my “ToDo folder”, which is largely composed of photos I haven’t finished sorting/processing/posting I have 81,000 photos just in 2025 and we’re only a few months in, and I’ve been dealing with a lot of stuff so I haven’t been out photographing as much. From 2024 there’s still 258,000. 2023 has 126,000. 2022 has 116,000.
The problem I have is partly technological, but primarily a problem of my own creation, and largely due to my basic philosophy. I’ve always gone by the idea that the most important part is taking the photos. I figure the sorting/processing/posting/printing can happen at any time, as long as I at least have the photos to work with. If I never take the photo, that image - that exact moment in time - is gone forever. So I always prioritize getting out and taking photos over sitting at my desk sorting/processing/posting.
But what happens if that leads to the situation that the photos where I never actually get the time to view/sort/process/post/print a large chunk of the photographs I’ve taken? Was it even worth taking those photos? Am I doing a disservice to myself and others by taking so many photos that many of them end up languishing on disk indefinitely? Of course, there is still some benefit to getting out there and taking the photos - I get to view those moments in time and store them in my brain and they become part of my life experience, at least for as long as my brain is able to store those images and experiences. And from a practical standpoint, being out there taking photos continues to give me practice and experience in taking photographs, so ostensibly my skills are always improving. Though I might argue, that the experience is at least somewhat limited by not viewing the photographs because it’s hard to identify mistakes and areas of improvement if you never look at the results.
I could, of course, just dial back the FPS at which I shoot - that will certainly help with the backlog problem, though at the expense of potentially getting “just the right image”. I suppose I should also be more aggressive in applying one of my primary photographic philosophies: “First get something, then try and get something better.” It’s a short phrase, and relatively basic, but I apply it in many ways to different aspects of my photography. If shooting at a high frame rate is impeding my ability to effectively get something, maybe I need to rethink things a bit.
Anyway, sorry for the long, rambling stream-of-consciousness post. I’m not sure if anyone else might find it interesting or useful, or if others have any bright ideas, or additional food for thought.
