In 2020 I started keeping track of how many photos I actually took, and in 2021 I kept at it and even added to it a bit, keeping track by type of outing (wildlife, landscape, around town, etc.).
While looking back at my favorite photos tells part of the story of the year for me, looking at the numbers is equally fun – at least for me. 🙂
So, how did 2021 turn out?
Photos taken: 6,084
And how many were kept (post review and editing)? 2,486
That comes out to a “keep” rate of 41%.
This was significantly less than in 2020 (13k+ photos taken), which was a surprise considering 2021 had more travel, but I did get out more in 2020, if even just for an evening around town. The keep rate was much higher this year (30% last year), in part due to less wildlife photography in 2021, plus for local photos, I’m much pickier about the photos I keep as I can go out again and again to get the shot I want.
As in 2020, a few caveats with these numbers:
- The number took includes everything on my SLR cameras, but not cell phone.
- The number took counts each image captured even if the plan from the start was to merge them into a panoramic, focus stack, HDR, or similar. This can range from 2-15 images taken with only 1 final image counted under kept.
Some more trivia:
- In total, I photographed on 38 occasions (a third lesss than 2020).
- I kept 48% of landscape photos taken, 41% of city photos, and 30% of wildlife photos taken.
- The most photos I took were on the Iceland/Faroe Islands trip (2,319 combined).
- The fewest were some roadside photos in Colorado (3).
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