Library of mariachi images vast, growing
Father Charles Rourke and Los Changuitos Feos
Click image to enlarge
The catalog and category features of Adobe Lightroom are among my go-to tools.
Every input added to the still imagery collection is broken down into individual categories. The system is highly versatile, so the same image can fit several categories.
For example, a particular panoramic assemblage might be added to the landscape, panorama, desert, sky and weather categories. And so it can be easily found under each.
Maya Arce of Tucson High School’s Mariachi Rayos Del Sol performs at the 2015 Tucson International Mariachi Conference.
Images appear sequentially by when they were shot. This is particularly helpful when I have several cameras on tripods shooting the same action simultaneously. It’s easy to find multiple angles of the same moment in Lightroom.
Another handy feature is a cumulative number letting the user know exactly how many images are in each category. It’s not something I look at often but recently it caught my eye on the mariachi and folklórico dance category. Having shot for years, and voluminously adding to that collection as I work on The Mariachi Miracle I suspected it was growing rapidly. But even I wasn’t prepared to discover that the collection was now in excess of 123,000 images.
They start, as one might expect, with photos of the early members of Los Changuitos Feos from the 1960s, and end with shots I took last week at the Pueblo High School mariachi summer camp.
MY Music mariachi summer camp
Like everything else in Lightroom they can be subdivided, allowing me to easily catagorize mariachi and folklorico content from historic, professional, student, private group, school group, festival and conference, rehearsal and other sources. Even a “favorites” sub-category will make finding the best images a snap. This will be key in work for The Mariachi Miracle film and book.
Ballet Folklorico Tapatio
Clicking on an individual images pulls up its name, appended metadata, what hard drive and folder it’s located in and other important information. And if it needs some adjustment, most of what I’d need to do can be accomplished right there in Lightroom without opening Photoshop.
Pretty powerful stuff.
After The Mariachi Miracle project is complete, copies of the photos that I have shot will be turned over to the Arizona Historical Society and to the University of Arizona Library Special Collections division so that others can consider them for use in their projects, and as a historical body of photography. Arrangements will be made at that time to facilitate the permissible uses, fees, etc. for these images.