Post: #1

Recently I've been trying to get more into photography, at some point in the near future I'd like to pick up a DSLR and a few lenses, but before that point I'm trying to learn as much about it as I can about the hobby.

Part of that is editing and optimizing photos, and general photo management. I tried to centralizie all my digital photos, and came to realize at best guess have almost 7000 pictures, totaling 14GB. I don't feel I take a lot of photos, have only had a digital camera since 2006, don't have a camera phone, and generally look with contempt towards people who think themselves in a mirror, food, or pictures of a group of feet are photo-worthy. (I guess it's only 1k photos/yr, and you can easily shoot 100+ on a day trip, but still)

I've been going through a lot of them, and realized a fair number are garbage shots, or not even oriented correctly for viewing.

This begs the question, if I couldn't even be bothered to go through a lot of them once to take out the obvious duds and orient them properly for showing off, what was the point of the photo? Or the rest of the ones which are good?

So what do you guys do with your photos? Make prints of the good ones and hang them? Do you actually go through them after each day taking pics and optimize them? Just show them to girls when you want to subtley show off? Or just look at them on your own when you want to go down memory lane? Or do you just hoard them on your card until it's almost full, then offload them onto your computer?

Post: #2

(07-07-2013 05:42 AM)Seadog Wrote:  Recently I've been trying to get more into photography, at some point in the near future I'd like to pick up a DSLR and a few lenses, but before that point I'm trying to learn as much about it as I can about the hobby.

Part of that is editing and optimizing photos, and general photo management. I tried to centralizie all my digital photos, and came to realize at best guess have almost 7000 pictures, totaling 14GB. I don't feel I take a lot of photos, have only had a digital camera since 2006, don't have a camera phone, and generally look with contempt towards people who think themselves in a mirror, food, or pictures of a group of feet are photo-worthy. (I guess it's only 1k photos/yr, and you can easily shoot 100+ on a day trip, but still)

I've been going through a lot of them, and realized a fair number are garbage shots, or not even oriented correctly for viewing.

This begs the question, if I couldn't even be bothered to go through a lot of them once to take out the obvious duds and orient them properly for showing off, what was the point of the photo? Or the rest of the ones which are good?

So what do you guys do with your photos? Make prints of the good ones and hang them? Do you actually go through them after each day taking pics and optimize them? Just show them to girls when you want to subtley show off? Or just look at them on your own when you want to go down memory lane? Or do you just hoard them on your card until it's almost full, then offload them onto your computer?

I always thought it would be cool to get some of the absolute best ones framed to hang around the house -scenes from around the world, etc. Keep those memories alive. Other than that, I wouldn't mind printing a bunch out and turning them into photo albums. I used to love thumbing through my mom's stacks of photo albums when I was kid. Now it seems everyone stores them on Facebook instead of in books and it seems a bit of a shame.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #3

I usually load them onto my computer, then move them onto discs. I pretty much delete the duds as I go, because I also like to take lots of pictures when I'm traveling, and they accumulate quickly. At the end of a trip, I almost always have more pictures than I thought I took. And I don't take pictures of food...hahaha!

Part of taking pictures is showing them to friends and family, as a way of saying, "Look where I went." A lot of my friends really don't take pictures, so if we're together celebrating, or a on a trip together, etc. I end up being group photographer (a role I've grown weary of, so I kind of stopped doing it). I'd post them to Kodakgallery (now Shutterfly) and email the album to everyone so they could have pics. I mostly take them for me - they're my memories, and I've thought about getting certain shots enlarged to hang at some point. I post very few to FB. When I went to Rome, I posted the pic of the Sistine Chapel ceiling because that was such a good get (it's my FB cover pic). I might have a Colosseum pic up too, but that's it. I only use them with women that show interest in travel themselves, as a way of engaging them in conversation about where they've been, and where they'd like to go in the future, etc.

Post: #4

I get prints of the photos I enjoy, then delete the rest. I have some photos in frames, most are in arbitrarily organized albums, e.g. family, vacations, etc. I pay about 20 cents per print and the 200+ capacity albums I bought at Wal-Mart cost less than $5 each.

I've had the same digital camera for five years, taken approximately 6,000 pictures, and got prints of about 600. Flipping through photo albums is magic for me - my relatives have photo albums spanning generations, which are fascinating for me to look at. Even seeing pictures of myself a few years ago is interesting to me, and often brings back memories of things I might not otherwise think about too often.

Also, I usually sort through any photos I take that day and order prints as soon as possible. It's a lot better than uploading hundreds of pictures from a large timespan at once, to sort through.