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I'm a very organized person. This has always been true, but became even more
so as I integrated my life with the digital age. In Silicon Valley, I worked
as an Intranet Web Developer, creating database driven websites to manage the
companies information and resources. On top of that, I occasionally work in the
Camera Department for motion picture productions, which means I'm in the habit
of labeling every roll of film and following exact protocols on documenting,
storing, and handling film.
When I shoot a roll of 35mm film, it is given the next free
Roll Number in my archive. Currently, that would be
001 (additionally, I have several albums of full negative sheet holders that lack both
Roll Numbers and digital archives, these albums represent the early days of
my photography, prior to this Photography section). New series of Digital photos
receive a single Roll Number. Large Format negatives don't come in rolls, but instead
come in boxes of 10 or 50 sheets. Each box receives a Roll Number.
Next, I scan the index card (or proof sheet) and save it into a new directory in my Photography
archive (which I periodically burn to CD). Say the roll was portraits of people.
The format for the new directory would then be:
/Photography/R1 - 2008.10 - Portraiture
I then scan any possibly noteworthy photos at either 300 or 600 DPI,
and save them is individual TIFF files.
I then create versions for the web and activate a macro to create the icons you see
on the site. The files follow strict format rules;
general_topic.specific_topic.file_version.jpg
The system will detect GIF and PNG files, but I try to use JPEG for my photos.
The 'topic' is sometimes left as one item instead of general and specific pieces.
The system will not accept new images without an icon file, specified by 'icon'
for 'version'. For instance:
ryan.tomb_raider.icon.jpg
ryan.tomb_raider.jpg
kiss.icon.jpg
kiss.large.jpg
kiss.medium.jpg
I then upload these images to the server and place them into directories
based on the content (instead of by roll). The base directory only has years,
beyond that there is one level for collection folders. For example:
/photography/collections/1990s/lissa/
/photography/collections/2000/hawaii/
/photography/collections/2000/nature/
/photography/collections/2000/san_francisco/
/photography/collections/2001/leaving_arizona/
/photography/collections/2001/north_carolina_with_katy/
/photography/collections/2001/full_sail_-_digital_cinematography/
/photography/collections/2002/full_sail_-_16mm_film_production/
/photography/collections/2002/portraiture/
I then click a button inside the private
section of my website, and it syncs the file system with the database. In the
situation illustrated above, it would find the two image groups and create two photos;
ryan.tomb_raider and
kiss.
Now anybody can view the photos. However, the system can only guess at how
to title the photos and has nowhere to begin for filling in information like
what camera or film I used. Therefor, when I view a photo on my website, I see
all the fields as text boxes or pull down menus. I can then simply view an image
and fill in some information to update the image data. Additionally, my website
manager has bulk-edit facilities where I can edit all the information of a collection
at once.
Every photo has a unique Reference ID. For instance:
W445-R053-F16
The three numbers that make up this ID are the Web Database ID,
Roll Number, and Frame Number respectively. The alpha letter
is added for extra clarity. Every image on the website has a Web Database ID,
and every roll in my physical archive has a Roll Number assigned to it. Many of
the older photos in my online collection are missing Roll Numbers and Frame Numbers,
as this ID was only recently put into place. I individually number slides by hand.
Having all three numbers allows me
to quickly find the physical film for a web photo, or vice versa; something which
will become quite important when I add online photo sales next year.
If any photo is particularly interesting, I create a high resolution version
to upload for sale. This high res version cleans up any errors in the scan (such as
dust and scratches). If the photo is Large Format, I must have it scanned by a third-party
at a rather high cost, so I'm less prone to do this unless somebody expresses interest
in buying a photo.
This concludes today's geekfest.
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