How to build an Archive as a Street Photographer

What to do with the mountain of photographs we Street Photographers collect over time? If you haven't figured out your archiving workflow, it is time to change that! Here is how I organize and back up my photography work.

Recourses mentioned in Video:

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What I use:

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#streetphotography #archiving #photographer

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
00:54 How my Archive looks like (offline + online)
05:01 Cloud Storage Solution
06:56 Step by Step Workflow (Importing, Renaming & Editing)
15:10 Archive Workflow for Everyday Snapshots
15:43 Ending

[HHTV]

Great minds think alike ;) When I was an independent trucker, I dealt with freight brokers who gave me loads. So, I created a similar archive system to keep track of my trucking jobs. I had folders for years (2017, 2018 etc); each year had 12 folders for the months; and then inside each month I had a separate folder named after the broker who gave me the load ("project'). Say, April 2017 would have 3 folders each named something like ABC Logistics, Premium Transportation, and Fast Express. These were the 3 brokers I did work for in April 2017. Inside each of those I'd keep my bills of lading, customs paperwork, my own invoices etc... I quit trucking last year, but I still keep this on my laptop... I can go back 5 years and quickly find how much money I made on a trip in - say - May 2019, where i went, and what the load looked like. Your system to track photos is similar to what I use to track my trucking. BTW, I do photograpahy as well, and I have yet to organize my photos! Thanks for a useful video.

[williamchan]

I agree using folders and manually making things easy to find with consistency is the best. Being software dependent is not good for future usage….that’s the whole premise of archiving for future usage and for someone else to find photos easily with out software.

[wylie_photo]

I've used Lightroom since the 2nd version was released. It is a little slow, but over 18 years, it's just become an ingrained part of what I do. I archive, then edit like you do. I spent the pandemic sorting through my digital files and organising them, so now I have a system that works for me. My favourite feature in LR is the smart folder set up, it allows me to review work quickly (once keywords are set up). I also mainly edit with LR as I am too lazy often to go into PS!

[instantesnet]

Well, I have to strongly (and friendly) disagree. I think LRC catalogue is one of its best features. Using a database driven catalogue, together with keywords, allows users to search and find pictures very quickly and easily. Combined and crossed searches are way more powerful and convenient than folder-based searches (i.e. find all my photos from Barcelona in any year, photos taken with a specific lens... the options are endless!); It's also worth mentioning smart collections and/or the rating system.
I know it takes time and effort to add keywords, but it does pay in the end.

[ajnart_]

Happy to see my city features in the thumbnail

[mrccurri]

I do something very similar but a much more simplified version. I have folders for every year, month, and day. I put any pictures I take on a specific day into their corresponding folder regardless of specific people, the camera I used, or anything like that. I like your method because locating specific photos months or years later seems much easier. With my method, I'm taking a shot in the dark when I want to find something. So I may be borrowing some concepts from this video! Thanks as always Samuel.

[JanneRanta]

I personally instead of <subject> YYYY folder naming start the folder name with ISO date. Like YYYYMMDD <subject>. That way they arrange by date when I sort by name.

[lukjs]

😊 I watched your video with great interest and I was pleased to discover I use almost the same kind of Archive. I've just to do some little adjustments. Very useful!!! Thanks Samuel

[scornography]

nice, I use a similar method and I also directly had to start learning it from the get go, as I started out as a concert photographer and you for sure need a clean logic for archiving and clean folders when going to several shows a month :)

thanks for the tip though with pcloud, I looked for an online solution for a while but couldn't really decide so it's nice to get a tip from a fellow photographer :)

[stephencifka]

This is tremendously helpful. Thank you!

[CrnaInBela]

Thanks, this video is exactly what I was looking for yesterday. Keep up the good work

[TheChosenOne_]

I do it very similarly although nearly completely automated with Capture One.

I create a session every year. I then import and automatically rename it all with date and location and camera directly from the SD card.

All these pictures are then in the „capture“ folder of the session. I then go through all and give one star to all „alright“ pictures. All of them are then transferred into the „selects“ folder. In there I go through again and give 2 stars to the better ones and maybe I go a third time and give three stars if there are still too many. This also means if I want to make a backup and i don’t have much storage it’s sufficient to backup the selects because all at least good ones are in there.

Then I edit and use an export recipe which automatically exports a 2000px jpg as well as an 1080px Instagram file in a folder and renamed with an Instagram suffix.

It’s really easy and fast.

[ThiagoFerreira-jntd]

Thank you very much. I was looking for a tutorial like this.

[albiov]

Hi. To be honest I think is the first time I see someone talking about this. 🎉🎉🎉

[martingreenberg]

Archiving my images. What a concept.

I have never done this. Vivian Maier is my model. Of course, my images, are nowhere as good as hers. Nobody will find my images when I die and say these are pretty good. Nobody says my images are pretty good while I am alive. Once I leave this earth plane I will not care what I have left behind.

I have many images on the hard drive of a couple laptops. I have several images on a plethora of memory cards. Sometimes I look at the images I created after a day of walking on the street. Many times I don’t. My images don’t matter. What matters is getting out of the apartment and walking.

For those of us that think our images have value archiving the images are important. Your point is well taken. Hard drives are cheap. Getting the images off the hard drive is important to allow more room. For me, this is an option I won’t pursue.

Thank you for the video.

Mask On Nurse Marty (Ret)

[alberte]

I use Photo Mechanic Plus (=Photo Mechanic + Archiving function) for selecting/deleting/metadata tagging images. Lightroom only for editing.
Storing images on minimum three locations and technologies in plain directories structures like camera / year / date+event name+image file type [RAW, JPG, TIFF (only for film)]

[louis]

Food for thought. I take my RAW files directly to a RAID mirrored device and catalog in 2 different ways-year and location so that means I have 2 RAID devices for RAWS. I use C1 and also use 2 RAID devices for my C1 Sessions-location and year. I realize I complicate my life with all these devices, but it works for me. As for backups I copy all data as noted above either to SSD or HDD drives which I put in a bank box and rotate these periodically which normally means if something happened I would loose perhaps one month of processing data. However, when I have been shooting a lot I will get that work into the bank box on a weekly basis. My 2 cents.

[regicruz]

Thanks for this! I really needed this, and I might try the workflow with camera raw

[barrycohen]

Screw Lightroom folders and archiving. I do not trust it one bit. (Or should that be One Byte?) I am the same, I store it all on hard drives.

[powderedtoastman]

Photomechanic is a fantastic app. Loved it when I shot weddings. So quick.
Capture one pro is great though