Based on my selection process over the past month, my infatuation half-life for new photographs seems to be about two weeks.
“Infatuation is the state of being carried away by an unreasoned passion or love.”
“Half-life (t1⁄2) is the amount of time required for a quantity to fall to half its value as measured at the beginning of the time period.”
I haven't been sharing those photographs because I decided to slow the sharing pace. But, I'm photographing regularly and making selections as I go along.
I use Lightroom to manage photographs. After an outing, I do a first pass and mark the ones I like with a five-star rating. I'm generous at this stage, giving photographs the benefit of the doubt. After a day or two, I revisit the outing and revise my ratings. I may add a five-starting rating to some and decrease the rating of others. I'll add the ones with a five-star rating to a project-specific collection.
Within a collection, the first-rate photographs have a five-star rating. The newly added photographs join that esteemed collection. Some may be down-graded right away when I see them in the context of other first-rate photographs.
Often, there are new ones I'm sure will make it as first-rate photographs. I mean, positively certain. There may even be several like that - which is very exciting.
I review the collection from time to time, as a minimum whenever I add new photographs to it. As I do this, the ratings of recently added photographs begin to fall. The ones I thought were definitely most excellent, fade to a more provisional status. On the next viewing, it becomes clear most of the provisional ones definitely don't warrant a five-star rating. Those infatuations are over, replaced by new ones. That process of going from "almost certainly a first-rate photograph" to "definitely not a first-rate photograph" takes about two weeks. The ratings seem to stabilize after that.
Recently, I've discovered a mental test that may be shortening the infatuation half-life. I ask myself: "When I decide to share these new photographs, would I select this as the first one to share?" If the answer is no, I downgrade it.
I think there will be a longer term "competition" to keep those five-star ratings, driven by factors other than infatuation.
Iona Beach, 2013