One of my very first photos, shot more than 40 years ago. I developed the roll myself, printed the picture myself. And it hang for all those 40+ years in my parent’s house.
Even these days I still think it’s a great composition.
A picture of my mother, literally on her deathbed, holding a piece of art my daughter created. I appreciated how she inspired a love of art and creating in her children and her grandchildren.
The photo I keep coming back to is one of my very first film photo, I was having a nap at the beach and just opening my eyes I had the perfect framed photo in front of me. This was my first photo having a good visibility and was a total coincidence. I keep coming back to it because it's for me the magic of photography, and I always wonder how to recreate this magic on purpose for the rest of my work.
A picture of a lighthouse at night I shot in December 2020. It was the first trip I took with my wife after the pandemic started. I was alone on the beach, without any other person, car or anything close to me. It was just me, the lighthouse, the ocean and the stars.
I like this picture because it took me a lot of planning to do it. Today I'd do it differently, because there are small star trails in the picture, but I like to see it from time to time and remember what type of art I can do with preparation and force of will.
I took this picture of a gull walking on water. I find the picture beautiful and it reminds me that I don't have to travel to take special pictures. It was taken a block from where I live. I just need to pay attention to what is around me.
A self portrait from more than ten years ago of myself in the garden , wedding, face turned away from the camera (a trend in my self portraits). In so many ways, it seems representative of me and how I engage with the world.
I have a photograph of a woman I only met once in a town not far from where I’m from in south Louisiana, USA. She worked at this little cafe where a scene from Easy Rider was filmed back in the day. The only reason I even met here was because her miniatures of the cafe building and others from her town were on display in the little shop area and I had asked the manager about them at which point he went and got Barbara, the creator. She was incredibly shy; about both her appearance and her miniatures, but she did agree to allow me to make her portrait after chatting for a bit. We went out back in a nice piece of shade and I made a few exposures. I later printed those negatives in our color darkroom at my university and I made several 20x24 prints of her image, one of which I keep framed on my wall. I still see a mixture of severe self-consciousness and fear in her eyes, but everything about her actions tell me she is strong, capable, and brave. I look at that photograph often, and fondly with great admiration for her despite the fact that I am one of only a few people in the world who have ever seen it.
It's a picture of my wife's legs, black and white, a sunray on her right leg shining through the curtains while she was sleeping. I took it with a Leicaflex SL2, and the shutter is so satisfyingly loud that it woke her up. Unfortunately, that shutter stopped working a while ago, and no one is willing to repair that camera. It was one of my absolute favorite SLRs.
I can attest to Excire, I have found it invaluable in locating images, both the LrC and standalone versions.
A photo I keep coming back to is one I took of my grandfather holding my 6 month old son, now 30 years old. The light from the window was soft and portrayed the contrast of aged, rough skin of a farmer's in contrast to the soft smoothness of a baby's. My son was looking and reaching up to my grandfather with one arm while my grandfather carefully held his precious cargo with both hands on his knee, a smile beaming from his aged face and eyes.
I’m hesitant to still trust an AI to search within images but it definitely works better for certain types of images. It definitely does not for concert photography. I can’t see an AI being able to find a specific musician, era or venue quite yet (unless it is embedded in metadata).
Key-wording images in Lightroom has worked wonderfully for me and my 35+ years of concert photography. Yeah, it was a royal pain to get the bulk of my work key-worded. Once a system was figured out and stuck to, then it was just a matter of sticking to that when new content got added to LR. I even have a smart search setup for images without keywords that get tidied up when time allows.
I put together a FileMaker database back in the early 2000’s of the 400+ rolls of film and their slide/negative sleeves that catalogued the who/where/whens of each concert. I numbered every sleeve and put them into the hard cases you also use. Now that 80% of all those sleeves have been scanned and input into Lightroom, they are part of that eco-system. “One day” they will all have been digitized, but I’m sure the technology will get better and better and some will need to get rescanned.
I’m sure I borrowed bits and pieces of my system from other photographers, but whatever I found elsewhere had to get molded into what my specific needs were. I envy the photographers who have only ever shot digital as the database of negatives was the biggest hassle and I still find errors in my notes of wrong years/venues. Thankfully there are 1001 concert/artist venue online archives for many larger musicians.
I had a similar request come in a few weeks ago to one you mentioned. “I’m looking for these 10 musicians from the 1990’s in venues in the tri-state area (NY/CT/NJ)” was the request. 20 years ago I would have gone into a tailspin and started thinking of what to print or scan and how to best get a gallery for the client. Now I just searched LR (and my FMPro database just to make sure there weren’t any that still hadn’t been scanned) and exported a gallery into a cloud shared folder and sent a link to the client.
That’s fantastic that you put all that work in to keyword everything, Adam. I never did so for me this is a godsend. I will say the “find a specific musician” element works absolutely fantastic, even better than it does in Google Photos. The era and venue I think would have to be embedded in the meta data of the picture like you said. But the people bit has been solved completely, it even pulls up pictures of child version of adults, it’s wild.
Love that you have all those negatives organized so tidy! Same for me, about 1000 rolls now, similar system to yours. All digitized but that’s only because they were digitized right away from the get go, by my labs so i can’t quite claim credit for that. More power to you, Adam! This must be an amazing archive!
One of my very first photos, shot more than 40 years ago. I developed the roll myself, printed the picture myself. And it hang for all those 40+ years in my parent’s house.
Even these days I still think it’s a great composition.
that's so special, michiel!
A picture of my mother, literally on her deathbed, holding a piece of art my daughter created. I appreciated how she inspired a love of art and creating in her children and her grandchildren.
this really moved me to read
The photo I keep coming back to is one of my very first film photo, I was having a nap at the beach and just opening my eyes I had the perfect framed photo in front of me. This was my first photo having a good visibility and was a total coincidence. I keep coming back to it because it's for me the magic of photography, and I always wonder how to recreate this magic on purpose for the rest of my work.
Ahhh chasing that high, so familiar :)
A picture of a lighthouse at night I shot in December 2020. It was the first trip I took with my wife after the pandemic started. I was alone on the beach, without any other person, car or anything close to me. It was just me, the lighthouse, the ocean and the stars.
I like this picture because it took me a lot of planning to do it. Today I'd do it differently, because there are small star trails in the picture, but I like to see it from time to time and remember what type of art I can do with preparation and force of will.
Yes yes yes!
I took this picture of a gull walking on water. I find the picture beautiful and it reminds me that I don't have to travel to take special pictures. It was taken a block from where I live. I just need to pay attention to what is around me.
That last line! Yes!
A self portrait from more than ten years ago of myself in the garden , wedding, face turned away from the camera (a trend in my self portraits). In so many ways, it seems representative of me and how I engage with the world.
I can see it in my mind's eye
I have a photograph of a woman I only met once in a town not far from where I’m from in south Louisiana, USA. She worked at this little cafe where a scene from Easy Rider was filmed back in the day. The only reason I even met here was because her miniatures of the cafe building and others from her town were on display in the little shop area and I had asked the manager about them at which point he went and got Barbara, the creator. She was incredibly shy; about both her appearance and her miniatures, but she did agree to allow me to make her portrait after chatting for a bit. We went out back in a nice piece of shade and I made a few exposures. I later printed those negatives in our color darkroom at my university and I made several 20x24 prints of her image, one of which I keep framed on my wall. I still see a mixture of severe self-consciousness and fear in her eyes, but everything about her actions tell me she is strong, capable, and brave. I look at that photograph often, and fondly with great admiration for her despite the fact that I am one of only a few people in the world who have ever seen it.
Beautifully said, Jonathan! Thank you!
It's a picture of my wife's legs, black and white, a sunray on her right leg shining through the curtains while she was sleeping. I took it with a Leicaflex SL2, and the shutter is so satisfyingly loud that it woke her up. Unfortunately, that shutter stopped working a while ago, and no one is willing to repair that camera. It was one of my absolute favorite SLRs.
oh that's so sad! I feel Pietro might be up for it: https://pppcameras.co.uk/ you could check with him or ACR: https://www.amsterdamcamerarepairs.com/
I can attest to Excire, I have found it invaluable in locating images, both the LrC and standalone versions.
A photo I keep coming back to is one I took of my grandfather holding my 6 month old son, now 30 years old. The light from the window was soft and portrayed the contrast of aged, rough skin of a farmer's in contrast to the soft smoothness of a baby's. My son was looking and reaching up to my grandfather with one arm while my grandfather carefully held his precious cargo with both hands on his knee, a smile beaming from his aged face and eyes.
love this so much paul!
I’m hesitant to still trust an AI to search within images but it definitely works better for certain types of images. It definitely does not for concert photography. I can’t see an AI being able to find a specific musician, era or venue quite yet (unless it is embedded in metadata).
Key-wording images in Lightroom has worked wonderfully for me and my 35+ years of concert photography. Yeah, it was a royal pain to get the bulk of my work key-worded. Once a system was figured out and stuck to, then it was just a matter of sticking to that when new content got added to LR. I even have a smart search setup for images without keywords that get tidied up when time allows.
I put together a FileMaker database back in the early 2000’s of the 400+ rolls of film and their slide/negative sleeves that catalogued the who/where/whens of each concert. I numbered every sleeve and put them into the hard cases you also use. Now that 80% of all those sleeves have been scanned and input into Lightroom, they are part of that eco-system. “One day” they will all have been digitized, but I’m sure the technology will get better and better and some will need to get rescanned.
I’m sure I borrowed bits and pieces of my system from other photographers, but whatever I found elsewhere had to get molded into what my specific needs were. I envy the photographers who have only ever shot digital as the database of negatives was the biggest hassle and I still find errors in my notes of wrong years/venues. Thankfully there are 1001 concert/artist venue online archives for many larger musicians.
I had a similar request come in a few weeks ago to one you mentioned. “I’m looking for these 10 musicians from the 1990’s in venues in the tri-state area (NY/CT/NJ)” was the request. 20 years ago I would have gone into a tailspin and started thinking of what to print or scan and how to best get a gallery for the client. Now I just searched LR (and my FMPro database just to make sure there weren’t any that still hadn’t been scanned) and exported a gallery into a cloud shared folder and sent a link to the client.
That’s fantastic that you put all that work in to keyword everything, Adam. I never did so for me this is a godsend. I will say the “find a specific musician” element works absolutely fantastic, even better than it does in Google Photos. The era and venue I think would have to be embedded in the meta data of the picture like you said. But the people bit has been solved completely, it even pulls up pictures of child version of adults, it’s wild.
Love that you have all those negatives organized so tidy! Same for me, about 1000 rolls now, similar system to yours. All digitized but that’s only because they were digitized right away from the get go, by my labs so i can’t quite claim credit for that. More power to you, Adam! This must be an amazing archive!
Thank you for this! Managing and searching my archive is one of my biggest struggle. Excited to check this out.
:)