Quality, not quantity, is the the rule that's been drilled into us since...forever. It's a blanket cliche that covers nearly any dilemma.
That point that was apparently lost on me this summer as I hustled through a busy racing season, producing 1800-2500 shots per race. I would speed through the culling and editing process to post them as quickly as possible, trying to meet some predetermined deadline in my head. I wasn’t taking the time I needed to review and edit down the selects to a reasonable number, and then stay patient through editing to achieve the result I wanted. It did produce a lot of images to share, and I’m happy that many people enjoyed them. In hindsight, I probably should have been more intentional with the process.
My goal is always to share the best images of the day, but I also get lost in trying to balance team representation, or people I don’t photograph often, and especially to make sure I have a good number of shots from the women’s races. This can be a struggle when there are usually just two women's fields to five or six for men. The result is that I end up including photos that I would normally have eliminated, and others stay out of my final set that are better, but are multiples of the same racer (Pro tip - if you are at the front of the race, there is a better than average chance I'll get a clean shot of you. Race is at the front!).
I have some downtime now, as I await cyclocross season, to reassess my priorities. Going forward, I’ll take more time to review my photos and put more thought into the editing process. This means I won’t rush to post photos the same day or even the next day. I will also likely reduce the number of images I post, but remain mindful of balancing representation and taking into consideration the story of each race. And there is always, always a story to tell.