Subjects
A good method could be to pick a theme/location combination and, as part of a walk, attempt to capture photos in the spirit of the theme. For example: “liminal spaces” → walk around a specific location to try and capture liminal spaces.
Folder structure
I think my current method of storing all photos by year in a single folder with date-time filenames works. However, it does become difficult to find specific photos of particular events or images that are thematically linked somehow.
!! Look for software that will allow me to tag photos. Photos from a given day/area/theme can all be bulk tagged, and during the editing process further, descriptive tags can be included.
This can include things like motif, theme, subject, etc. Much like group tagging.
Another option:
Create a folder structure such as ~/Media/Photos/Year/YYYMMDD_HHSS.JPEG. This structure then becomes an archive. The next step is to use symbolic links that direct to this archive, such as:
../fstop/1.3/YYYYMMDD_HHSS.JPEG -> ~/Media/Photos/Year/YYYMMDD_HHSS.JPEG
`../event/YYYYMMDD_HHSS.JPEG → ~/Media/Photos/Year/YYYMMDD_HHSS.JPEG
This method can run into issues when copying files somehwere else. However the cp command has a --preserve option that will maintain attributes of the file, including symlink paths.
Software:
- Darktable
- Shotwell
Philosophy
To remember scenes from our life and truly curate a library of photos that brings us joy the most important step we can take is to delete photos. That is to say, ensure that we have a way to see photos say, on our phones, and then attempt to remove anything that doesn’t truly deserve to be there.
An ideal workflow would be one where I take photos with either my phone or my camera. Once I download the photos from the camera’s SD card those photos should sync into my server; but they should also be easily available from my phone (perhaps a rolling window of synced images available all the time on my phone?).
Taking a photo of an event will enhance our visual memory of it, but with the trade off that we lose some memory of other senses - such as the smell, the touch, the vibe of the event. The solution is to save visual information saved in photos, but then stop taking photos in order to maintain a memory of all the other aspects of the even (consider, too, writing things down! - this is much like the second brain method)
Learning to wait
As part of learning how to use photography for artistic means, I think it is relevant to consider the idea of patience around a place. Good photography is planned, but there are far too many variables that we cannot control. As a result the way of photography is to plan or choose a specific aspect that we can predict - say the background, a foreground, a time, etc - and then learning how to wait; how to look at the place and move away from the itch to run and do things.
This also means that good photography will not be “candid” in terms of it being always spontaneous. Rather, the candidness will emerge with time after a set has been designed.