I finished a long-time workflow project yesterday. All of my “picks” in Lightroom have been processed! That consists of just over 60,000 photos dating back to my first digital camera in 2004. While 60,000 photos is a tiny collection compared to a lot of photographers, I have been very selective about what I keep. I’ve probably taken twice that many photos over the years, but I have been systematically deleting the “non-picks” in order to keep the number down.
I know that digital storage is cheap, but just like I’m stingy with my closet space, I tend to be stingy with my “digital closet” as well. As it is, I’ve just about filled my 2-terabyte hard drive. Fortunately, later today the FedEx truck will be bringing me 4 new 4-terabyte drives. That will get me thru a few more years of photos and give me breathing room for an impending camera upgrade.
All this activity is paving the way for a long-overdue update to my website. I love the layout but the photos need refreshing. As I work on that project I’ll probably post some highlights from the archives on this blog. It’s been a fun project, and I have a few thoughts about working on old photos with new software. Spoiler alert: one of the most interesting but frustrating changes is that the new software allows us to see sensor dust spots better, and the old digital cameras didn’t have dust removal functions built in! Ugh! 🙂
I wonder the number of photographers who have been wading through the Archives, deleting a few and going “Oh Wow” on a few. I’ve done that also because I’ve just not been out that much. Even the past couple weeks I’ve not taken my camera with me on as many walks, which is unusual. I upgrade to two 4-terabyte external drives this past year, a major increase from two 1-terabyte external drives. I was really getting to the limit on my disk space. Love the image, subtle, soft and eye catching for me.
Yes, I’ve had a few of each of those – the ‘WOW’ and the ‘outta here!” it’s interesting that I often worry that I take too many photos, but it seems like many people take way more than I do. The larger files are what has kept me out of the upgrade cycle, but I think with the new Fuji it’s time to make the leap. We’ll see – it isn’t supposed to be available until early June, so I’ll have time to think about it. Yeah, right! 😉
Sounds like you’re already done thinking about it
Once my CFO gives her go-ahead I need to move forward without delay. 😉 Actually, I’m going to buy the X-T4 but want to wait until we have a little more clarity on our June travel plans to work out the timing. Hopefully a couple of more weeks and we’ll be more clear.
That works out because I don’t think they’re not shipping until June.
I’m planning to buy from a dealer in Indianapolis that I was turned on to by the guy that led our Italy workshop. We’re hoping that things work out for us to have an excuse for a road trip to pick it up. We’ll see how that goes.
If you think that 60000 is not many then I won’t say how many I have all up but let’s just say my entire computer drive is half a TB and I still have plenty of space 🙂 But I am an outlier and I know several photographers who have set up servers in their homes to store upwards of 20TB with one guy needing 100TB. However, I cannot help but think that the only difference between them and you is that they are too lazy to do what you did. So well done Tom, that’s quite an achievement. I look forward to seeing the refreshed website.
Thank you, Cedric. The whole digital workflow and storage management piece is one of the things I think we have to accept and embrace as one of the prices we pay to be photographers. In many ways I envy the simplicity of the less-than-half-a-TB archive, but would also suggest that there may be unrealized or perhaps unfulfilled creative potential in that smaller number. But ultimately if you’re good with it then it’s good! 😉
That is quite the accomplishment – and no matter how the size of archive compares to anyone else, 60k photos is A LOT of photos to sort through, even with today’s modern tools. And I know, nothing is more mundane than dust spots, which I also find a straggler here and there when redeveloping images.
I am probably due for a storage upgrade as well. I gather 4TB is now the new sweet spot for price?
Best of luck on the website also – which can also be quite involved!
Thanks, Mark. There were “only” a few thousand photos to go through, as I had done a fairly decent job of keeping up over the years, but there were a certain number of older photos I hadn’t messed with, possibly because of all the dust spots!
I’m not sure about “sweet spot” for drives, but I know that I compared pricing on 3TB and 4TB drives and they were very similar. I didn’t need to go larger than 4TB so I didn’t really look. I use Western Digital ‘WD Black’ drives for internals and they were about $180 each, and the ‘WD Elements’ external drives were $90 each.
The website will be interesting and I plan to spend a lot of time with it. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you like to mess with websites) the formatting options for the website are very limited, so it will be more about the content than fancy layouts. That’s OK with me! I’ve used it for years (Neon Sky) and it works well for me.
I’ll be sure to write about it when I’m done, but it will be a while, for sure!