Roping and branding a vast range of photos
I love Adobe Lightroom.
Beyond its versatility as an image editor, one of the functions I use most frequently is its Library mode.
In it I can see a thumbnail of every digital image or video clip, arranged chronologically by date and time. Every digital image I’ve made in the past 15 years is in that collection, which currently holds about 190,000 images and clips.
As I page down, I see my work unfold. I see what was interesting to me at various points in my life. I see my work unfold and evolve. I see ideas, techniques and skills progress, and knowledge grow. I see the history of my community, my family and friends, and more. I see things that were and no longer are, and things just starting. Places I have been, some of which call me back to look some more.
Here are all the projects I’ve worked on since I started working with digital cameras around 2000, laid out frame by frame, page by page, in the order in which they were shot.
It is a daunting collection. In that time I’ve made eight documentary films, shot countless commercial, art and personal projects, and started a number of different photographic and film studies. And here they are.
My image and clip filing system has been a work in progress from the start. Things are scattered on hard drives in multiple locations. But Lightroom brings them all together in one place, where I can lay eyeballs on what I’ve done and find out with a mouse click exactly where that image resides.
And more importantly, where I can subdivide that vast waterfall of imagery into pertinent collections of my choice. The images related to a particular film project. Friends and family. Collaborations and commercial partnerships. Landscapes and cityscapes. History, music, art. The giant panoramas I create, all in one folder.
Organization is a lovely thing.
It takes time to set these systems up, and even more to maintain them. But doing so makes quick examination of vast numbers of images possible. That makes it well worth the trouble and time spent.