Housekeeping

It’s pretty amazing how much ‘stuff’ we accumulate over the years. It starts small over here, then some more over there, and more in this spot… it keeps going without us truly understanding how much we’ve collected. I’m not a hoarder of physical things, although I am quite a clutter-bug here and there - my hoarding is with Data, Photos in particular.

I got my first digital DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera for Christmas back in 2007; I photographed everything I could, and everyone too. It took time to learn the basics and fundamentals- Shutter speed, aperture, depth of field, ISO, and everything in between. I saved almost every shot I took, even the out of focus and just totally unusable photos - I didn’t say bad photos, in my mind a bad photo is the one you didn’t take. Not sure where I heard that.. but it stuck with me. Same as the BEST Camera is the one in your hands - not your phone per-say, but the camera you pick up and use. Ok… back on track..

As the years went on I attempted to do some of the ‘challenges’ you see online. 365 - one photo every day of the year. 52 - similar to the previous, but one solid photo every week. Color challenges, Black and White… the list goes on. I gave the 365 a shot and didn’t do too bad with it, but I’ll admit, I never finished it, or the 52. Maybe I should get back to the basics and give one or both a shot again. I’m using 2021 as a fresh start - I think I just set myself a goal!

Ok, back on track… those damn ‘SQUIRREL’ moments derail quite often. Digital Hoarding - so over the years I went through quite a few PC’s (I was also a gamer, so always after bigger and better). I did my best to keep the photos together, but I also know I’m missing huge gaps in the visual journey because I stored photos across multiple drives, and during re-builds (even HD crashes), I’d lose track of some here and there. I started getting a little better about it as the years went on, and tried to consolidate- it worked ok, but I still had the hiccups here and there.

Fast forward to early October 2020 - My boyfriend and I were discussing how many gigs of photos I had saved (spoiler - I was beyond gigs..), and I walked him through my workflow. He pointed at the obvious “Why do you keep the junk images?”. I didn’t have a good reason, and it stayed on my mind for days, asking myself the same question - there wasn’t an answer. With that non-answer, I decided it was time to clean. I’m not working right now so it’s given me lots of time to gather all the various hard drives (external, SATA, IDE, and even my NAS).

Taking a look at the core photos folder I was sitting at 1.95 terabytes of data - luckily it was mirrored across a physical external drive, and my NAS. I worked on it for weeks, re-building a new file structure, culling through each shoot, and copying them to their new home (leaving original folders in-tact just incase).

After weeks, I reached the end - today. I took 1.95tb and culled it down to 593gb - pretty damn awesome if I don’t say so myself! I don’t have big plans for all the ‘good’ images living in that 953gb, but they’re safe and backed up in more than one place - it’s a really good feeling.

How do you manage your workflow, or image storage, or backups? Let me know in the comments.