circle unbroken

[iowa6]

I am a photographer who shoots digital images. I love digital cameras and the ever present "polaroid" image that appears on the back of

my G9 or 5D. I'm a street shooter, snap shooter, hip shooter and sometimes a sneaky shooter. I am addicted to the adrenaline rush that

accompanies seeing at 250th a second.

Here's the catch...I have literally thousands of images stuck in folders in external hard drives. I find it incredibly painful and at times

impossible to set quietly in front of a monitor and click away in photoshop or lightroom. I can't seem to connect with the discipline of

staying on task. I keep thinking that I need to spend the winter in a cabin in Northern Wisconsin with no phone nor television nor internet

nor wife or cats. Just me, a computer, and printing paper stacked like fire wood until the spring thaw.

Do any of you relate to this? How do you complete your circle?

[MichaelChang]

Jack, I find the post-capture aspect of photography to be equally rewarding and involving as getting the shot. The way I deal with it, is to focus on favorites from the day's batch while leaving the remaining for a rainy day. I'm happy to have one or two keepers regardless of how much I shoot per session, so the low level of expectation allows me to spend quality time in post, to learn new technique, think, and render several version from which I will choose the following day. <br><br>

The remaining are stored as you, chalked as experience but revisited from time to time, to see if seconds can be salvaged. This is when I'm often inspired to rework old favorites too. I also find the No-Words forum to be a great motivator in digging through my archives as memory prompts recollections of photos that will fit a theme.

[john schroeder]

You lack discipline! You also lack a cabin and firewood. You will need a generator too; And gasoline for the generator. Your biggest problem, as I see it, is you have a life. If you get rid of your life then everything else will fall into place. Keep the cats though. They are a good defense against the depression of not having a life. ;-}

[iowa6]

...that's really funny, John! I feel better now. My biggest fear is that my wife (and cats) will stumble upon my photo.net

post. Then I will be in a cabin somewhere, or a dog house.

 

J

[mark_chartrand]

This bantering was worth the price of admission. Thanks, I needed a chuckle!

 

Mark

[geoffs1]

"How do you complete your circle?"

 

Deadlines frequently bring a clarity of vision not present in my basic nature...

[iowa6]

Good point, Geoff! You just reminded me to take out the trash! And last year I had 10 pieces in a show and they got

printed and framed and hung right on time. Full circle!

 

Thanks,

 

j

[Ed_Ingold]

<i>I find it incredibly painful and at times impossible to set quietly in front of a monitor and click away in photoshop or lightroom. I can't seem to connect with the discipline of staying on task.</i>

<p>

When you fill a memory chip, take it to Wolf, Ritz, Walgreens, ... and upload your images to be processed. You don't have anything to worry about as long as you have money in the checking account. It's no different than dropping off your film in former times.

<p>

Personally, I don't have a problem sitting down for a few minutes at Lightroom making adjustments. I spend far more time backing up to DVD's than "developing". I've come to find that I'm actually better at it than the teenagers usually employed at minilabs. It helps to be reasonably consistent behind the lens so that adjustments are small. I only resort to Photoshop for special requirements or cleaning things up for big enlargements. I like the thought that all adjustments made in a completely lossless fashion, thus avoiding backing up several versions of the same image. From Lightroom I can run off copies in TIFF or (more likely) JPEG for delivery.

[john schroeder]

The best advice I can give you is to set aside ten to twenty minutes a day for filing and organizing your images. Don't save without organizing any new images. I went a year once with out editing any negatives. I just tossed them into a pile. The pile got really huge. It took me a week to finally go through all these negs and toss the bad ones and file the good ones in clear files. I had two large garbage bags full of crap photos and negs when I was finished. I also had a good idea of what I was spending on processing and film in a year. I learned my lesson very well. I keep everything very organized now.

[mnelson]

I import the new ones into Lightroom. I play a slideshow and tag the blurry ones (lots of them) as rejected. Then I delete all the rejected ones and go back through tagging with 4's if I want to put it in my gallery but I need to work on it, or 5's if they are ready to crop and upload. I have an external drive and a good size internal drive with almost a terabyte of space, but I still delete from the disk when I delete. I don't erase from my G9 until I have successfully seen them all on the computer. I have a bit of OCD going on here, so take with a grain of salt. lol M

[jpo3136b]

I once met another photographer who had a big caricature cartoon in his office. In the cartoon, he and his buddies were

all chained to computers above a big sign that said, "Just Mac It." There's drudgery in every job. I like film

photography. For me, the drudgery is making another set of layout marks to get that batch of prints packaged for

display.

 

"Don't cry for me, Argentina;" "Tell it to the Chaplain;" "I brought you your crying towel and teddy bear. Do you want me

to fetch your slippers?" ;-)

 

Hang in there. Keep your eye on the prize. Sometimes it helps to chop up the tasks to get some variety, but keep track

of that, or you can confuse yourself and your progress. For layout marking, I recommend an internet radio set to a

stand-up comedy channel. J.

[iowa6]

Hey, Thanks to each of you for your thoughtful response to my male pms rant. I feel better today! Shot most of the

afternoon, downloaded and edited the take, popped open a nice bottle of wine and now ready to watch October baseball!

 

The best reminder for me is to break the computer tasks down into shorter time periods. It helped today to think "one

hour" and I finished a bit less than that.

 

Now, where are my slippers? I'm waiting for the first pitch.

 

J

[chelsea]

I shoot/download shoot/download (repeat process) until this little popup appears on my screen that tells me "disk is full". Doesn't take long when you have an old computer and shoot raw files. Then it's an evening of "sort your folders by subject matter" and "clean out the crap" (i.e. wear out the delete button) and burn many folders to dvd's. Of all the shots, go through folders and select the "favourites" (one or two of the best shots in each folder) to be kept on the hard drive. Now I need to find time to go through the favourites file and format them, put them on a cd and take to photo lab to have printed and stuck into albums.

 

See, it ain't just a "guy thing". Not a "cat person" thing either, I have a dog. It's called "person with life" thing, responsibilities and commitments taking away from our play time. When there is time to play, the priority is to take camera in hand and shoot, not vegetate in front of a monitor. Don't despair Jack, I'm looking at a shelf full of film slide boxes beside me that have been sitting there for about 5 years waiting to be sorted!

[bernie moore]

Jack, you really should practice procrastination. Develop it as a major life skill. When you're bored go back to Light room and Photoshop. At the moment I am procrastinating, but for the life of me I no longer remember from what. See how well it works?

[iowa6]

Mr. Bernhardt, I am presently procrastinating while enjoying my (second) glass of red wine. Your advice is well taken.

Now, where was I?

 

Jack