studio|detro

This sounds really geeky. But I hate loosing files. When people say their laptop went down with their family photographs (not backed up anywhere) I get so sad. It’s like a fire wiping out a closet of prints and negatives.

But it’s super preventable! In the fire and film example, you’d have had to print duplicates, sort them and send them to your second home. It’s even more trouble to duplicate the negatives.

Now, you don’t even have to have a second home! Duplicating the digital photograph and putting it on another drive is so easy! That’s one backup. Drives (that are relatively large) can start at $40.00 and you can get them at a “normal” store, not even a computer-only kind of store. That’s not too scary!

When you get really large files from a large sensor digital camera, the back-up process gets a little more robust.

So fun! All those photos are safe and fun to review in digital form. Now to tackle my piles of film negatives in the name of redundancy.

This is the $100 million question, right? (Except that stock photographs are not so valuable anymore, so to adjust for industry changes, it’s probably a $75 question … )

It’s all about organization of digital files. If you’re organized already, you’re probably not feeling a huge pinch until you’re up to 1,000+ images. If you’re in an unorganized situation, you are either extremely frustrated or have already given up hope. Is there an easy answer? Is there a one size fits all answer?

Following are a few options at various commitment levels and price points.

1. Picasa - for the unorganized or organized using one computer. Great free software that doesn’t re-organize your hard drive, I hate it when my files are moved around among folders without my involvement - it’s scary! This program is free and not scary.

2. Being Organized - for the organized using one or multiple hard drives. This is great if you don’t really like going outside ever. You have to have a browser application if you’re doing photo organization only in folders, otherwise getting thumbnail previews is a pain. I think that having a system of folder organization is pretty critical. I think that what your system actually is (by event type, date taken, original file type, or a hybrid of any of these) can be hotly contested. This process is important.

3. Uncommitted Part A - I’ve organized in folders (#2) and then viewed them via Adobe’s Bridge application. It came with Adobe’s Photoshop CS3 and I love them both. These two processes (organization + Bridge viewing) are not cutting it for me with the thousands of photos I’m going through.

Here’s a screenshot of Adobe’s Bridge peering into my folders.

4. Using a software system only - for anyone who loves long term commitments. This option is my main slipping point, as I’m personally swamped in indecision and not getting any traction. This decision is important and is a pivotal point in your photograph capture process and continued organization.

iPhoto is great and all inclusive. It moves your files around on the hard-drive and makes it’s own directory structure and that scares me. Gotta be committed to it.

Lightroom is great and couples really well with my current loves, Bridge and Photoshop. You have to buy in and can use it to manage your photo library locally on your machine and on multiple external hard drives and/or servers. Gotta be committed to it.

Aperture is great and streamlines stuff for me as a Mac user. Since the rest of my family are shutterbugs and Apple users, this program makes sense for me to commit to - since they’ll be calling me for IT support on it (which is much preferable to calls about iPhoto!). Gotta be committed to it.

5. Uncommitted Part B - I think this is the way I’m going next … it seems like the logical next step in resolute uncommitment. There’s a program from iView (now Microsoft) that’s a bit like Adobe’s Bridge - they call it Expression Media. I’ve got the trial version going and I’ll see if it’s a good buy for me over the next month.

I’m hoping to organized in folders (#2) + manage all these hard drives of images + and then viewed them via Adobe’s Bridge application (#3) OR Microsoft’s Expression Media (#5). Then, no matter what software I need to spend the most time in, Aperture or Lightroom or next generation photograph organization and manipulation software or Photoshop, I’ve got a jumping place. We’ll see.

I’m following a few photographers online. As new names and beautiful images pop-up, I’m making lists to track back to those websites, too. The two most common things I see among these fellow photographers are as follows:

• they vary widely on copyright practices {a very interesting topic to pick up later}.
• they almost never are the sole income earner of thier family on photography alone.

Photographers seem to operate as such as a “sidecar” job.

I recently ran across the name Angela Drury in a podcast I listen to … she was mentioned as a photographer and associated in conversation with a certain process in photoshop. Looking at her search results, I found her fine art/children portrait photograph website; and also her day job via LinkedIn. Angela works as a Customer Support Manager at Adobe.

I’m referencing this one individual as a general example for what seems to be a general rule. Check out her site, the photographs are pleasant and thought-provoking.

Why isn’t photography an income earning profession? Has it ever been?

A podcast that often visits this topic is Brooks Jensen’s LensWork Podcast on Photography and the Creative Process. He references gallery prices and gallery sales relating to independent income in this audio file. He speculates that really expensive prints belong to photographers that make their living doing something else. Interesting. This turns simple supply and demand logistics up on one end - lots of supply, but no demand at such a high cost.

I wonder if low cost is the answer. My own photography is priced as low as I can get it. I wonder if that’s a great idea or not, I have to work really hard just to replace equipment (with the digital age, generally things got more expensive, not less!). And I am working as a part-time photographer myself. There is no way what I’m making starting out could begin to support me and G financially!

This topic too will have to be picked up later for further discourse … lots to think about, and no easy answer!

Don’t you feel like you can just wait for an answer to show up (note the tie-in with the photograph)? Let someone else work out the details and keep photographing on yourself …

Maybe it can be a similar case to the infinite monkey theorum (a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a particular chosen text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare) “disproven” by the world wide web and blogs like mine. So, no matter how many photographs are taken by any number of people, a few well composed photographs will have recognized value!