Greetings all!
I’m writing to you from my couch in the early hours of the morning. Sylvia woke up at 4:30, and by the time I got her back to sleep, I was feeling pretty awake myself. I considered going to the Y or for a run, but instead, I crawled back to my familiar nest on the couch with my friend the laptop.
A couple nights ago, Bryan and I sat down to watch a couple episodes of Parenthood, and I figured I’d do something on the computer while I watched. 36 hours later, I’d completed a massive photo-uploaded campaign. I didn’t go to bed until almost 3am, and then I worked on it constantly most the next day. Why do I do these things?
I started this blog in May 2005, and since that time, I’ve shared about 10,000 pictures (that averages out to about 5 images a day). But I’d got to thinking that I have all these pictures on my computer from 2000-2005 that aren’t available for sharing. What good are they doing me on my computer when they could be available to family and friends and the wide world? What if I’m away from my computer and wanted to know what year I visited Yellowstone? Now I can find out (it’s August of 2002).
Before uploading the photos, I had to pick my favorites (fortunately, they’re all organized on my computer into folders by activity and season). Then I uploaded the photos into Flickr using my new version of Lightroom. Each album (known in Flickr lingo as a set) gets put in a collection, which I list by season. Ridiculously, the sets had to be dragged one by one into the correct order. It took hours. However, I’m happy to say that all 608 sets are now in happy chronological order. My heart is at peace.
Here’s a snapshot of some of the collections:
In the last day or so, I’ve uploaded about 4,000 images from my early digital camera years. It was a little like being in a mind warp to spend a solid day immersed in the images of a time long gone. I’d forgotten how many photos I’d taken of my plants and my house and my cats and of April. Pre-kids, I had to unleash my photographing needs on something!
I loved looking back and remembering some of the best times of my married life pre-kids. Good visits with friends, camping and weddings and holidays with family. I liked seeing all the many pictures I’ve taken of our apartments and homes, and I can clearly remember the potent mix of feelings I had when we left our friends in Ann Arbor to come move to Madison. It’s sad to see pictures of us with people who are now gone…especially my mom…but it’s also lovely to revisit some of the times we were all together. For me, photographs take me back to the moment the shutter clicked. I can feel the breeze and smell the air. I can remember how a moment later, I reached over to touch the person. So spending a full day processing all these images makes me feel a little like I fell down a rabbit hole. “When are we?” I want to ask. Then my kids clamber about, and I remember:)
You can see all my photos organized by:
- Collection (season)
- Set (album)
- Tag (although I’ve only tagged about 1/4 of the pictures)
- Calendar (see the image below). I think my camera’s date information wasn’t working for much of the early 2000s, so most (but not all) pictures before then don’t show on the correct date. However, it’s really cool to flip through the months and to see a pictorial journal over time.
OK, I’ve had 14 blog entries (all drafted and waiting for some attention) and a few photo sessions to finish, so enough with this obsessive photo archiving business. Enjoy taking a trip down memory lane:)
~Althea