Photo Order

Last week I wrote about taking photos manually vs automatic and I mentioned that I take a lot of photos and also delete a lot of them. Because the problem with digital photos, in my openion, is that most people do not sort them and you really have to or else your drown.

Many years ago I have invented this tree-structure in my photo folders:

Photos
     2012
          2012-08-12_Harzen_vacation

I have a main folder named Photos, which is on the harddisc I save all my files on. I have two harddiscs - one I install on and one I save files on. Under this folder I have the years and under these I have the ISO-format for dates so the order is always correct. I don't use Danish letters and spaces in my filenames, because I'm an old it-nerd. I use underscore (_), but perhaps it doesn't matter anymore. This way it is very easy to make a backup, since I only have to copy the main folder named "Photos".

When I have copied all the photos from my memory card to a folder like the one above, then I start sorting - the first sorting is easy. The first ones to go are wrong shots and these are also the ones that are over og under exposed. Delete, delete! Then I go through them all again a few more times, and now I delete photos in which people look stupid (I would thank others for doing this) and photos that are unimportant. I often ask myself if I would look at this in ten years? If not - away to the bin it goes. Many photos are not saying anything - they also have to go. And then there are all those I have been experimenting with - I can sit for long and change back and forth before I decide which one I keep. I do read the "Properties" of the photos by right-clicking and read its "Details", so I learn something from my experimenting.

I hope I have inspired you to sort out and keep your photos in order, so your photos also will be interesting for others and yourself in ten years. :)

Hey! Did you notice? A post about photos - without a single one. That's not good, so here is a decent one of me (thank you, sis) wearing my nice vintage dress at DH's fifties birthday garden party: