I hedge a lot in my life. When there’s not a clear good choice, I often hedge my bets: I’ll either allocate resources to both options or find some in between option and go for that. I think this works well for practical/material/financial/logistical matters and aligns well with the financial investing idea that you “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.

When it comes to editing photos, however, you’ve got to treat hedging like it’s poison.

We’re already awash in a sea of way too many photos–via ads, magazines, billboards, and the Internet (esp social media). The last thing people need to see is more photos because you (the photographer) can’t figure out which one is your best shot to present; so you present multiple versions.

This latter strategy may be okay when someone paid you to take photos and they have a strong vested interest in them. The client likes the photographer to edit the collection of shots down to the best ones; but I find they often like to make the final choices for prints, albums, etc.

However, when you’re foisting unrequested shots onto the viewing public, you’ve got something like a nanosecond to get their attention. If you don’t pick out and present just the one best representative of a particular shot scenario and instead hedge by presenting multiple versions of it for the public to decide which they like best, you’re more than likely going to lose them down the slippery slope of indifference…even before you can say, “but I like so many of them, I wasn’t sure which one to present..”.

Editing, editing, editing…

Be brave and fearless my timid photography editing friend because hedging–when it comes to editing photos–is a recipe…not for disaster exactly, but for driving any audience you hope to engage away from your photos.

(Note: I’m not a perfect editor either. I’m working on it!)

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