Photography, file organization, and story telling (Curating a Digital Life)

I wrote this piece in the “before times” (2016, specifically and published it on a now dead blog). I liked it so much I’m resurrecting it here. I’ve updated it a bit here and there for clarity. This article is about photography, file organization, story telling and what it means to “curate” a digital life.

Our lives are filled up with digital moments. We can all agree on this.

It seems no matter the circumstance, our first impulse is to Snap or Insta that fabulously presented entree, or if we are on holiday, to capture that amazing person, place, or thing as a remembrance.

Now this isn’t a posting about how smart phone use is the death of culture. Far from it. Conversely, I believe that photography is a powerful gateway to our past, the key to collective memory, of remembering the moments that matter. That’s pretty high brow. Let me dial it back. Here’s what I mean.

Recently, while driving a group of volleyball players to practice (car pool dad, here), we passed a car on fire. ON FIRE. One of the girls Snapped the moment, and within seconds, her phone blew up. There is great power in that kind of grab and share, and we’ve all been there. Being part of something like this makes our world feel little smaller, and it is one the forces driving social media use. And memes, obviously.

From last fall, 2015. Just driving down the road, and minding my own business. pic.twitter.com/gyQVnhm0Gd

— Bryan (@ProfHiatt) June 23, 2016

But some days I wonder: what are people doing with all the pictures that don’t make it to Instagram? Do they live on the phone only, in a kind of digital prison? Backed up into Apple and Google photo streams and forgotten? Does anyone ever look back?

As a gentleman of some age, I’ve witnessed the advent of digital photography, been an early adapter, and upgraded cameras as I could. The real problem for me is storage and organization in the face of the relentless flow of pictures, less they become abandoned. If not, those pictures will be scattered across a wide range of devices, cloud services, and computers. For years, I organized by YEAR and MONTH (many folders since 2002), and I backup 80+GB of content every few months (combination of cloud storage plus external hard drives). You should, too. More recently, like most of us, I’m taking fewer photos on actual cameras, as our modern phones (with their high MP pixel counts) are just awesome. No better word, really. And our photos, then, head straight to the cloud. Problem solved?

Well, kind of.

To make the total GB number manageable, I go through the folders from the start once a year and examine EVERYTHING. I ask: do I need to keep this 3mb, dark-ish picture of shark at an aquarium in 2007? Probably not. I have a different rule about selfies: I keep every last decent one, especially the one’s with friends, as they are useful as a reminder of the passing of time.

That 80+GB of mine is also heavily augmented by video, as I used an old action camera mounted to a mountain bike and car while riding and traveling for many years. And Youtube, of course. I’m still coming to terms with going through that stack of digital files and forever tinkering with camera settings as a way to get the best value for video and picture quality versus storage needs later on.

But here’s the thing: going back through my archive, I made some discoveries. In the past ten years, my little family of three made six trips across the country and visited a host of amazing places. I’ve seen long forgotten pictures and dozens of short videos that tell a little (and different) slice of a story. There are new conversations to have with family, great moments to relive with friends, and other memories to be unearthed, as if you some sort of digital anthropologist.

Now the videos: they provide another unique opportunity if you know how to use video editing software and post to Youtube or Instagram. With the video, linked here (in 2016), and by the end, I felt moved by the commitment of my family to endure all the driving, all hard moments, just to get to the places we wanted to experience, to see the people that mattered most. Maybe what’s missing for many is the act of reflection…maybe years on down the line…about context, and in re-sharing the moment with a friend or loved one. 

So maybe it’s time to dig into that collection, and think about getting some folks together for a slideshow or movie (after the pandemic, of course – disclaimer: be safe). “Remember that from back in the day? That was…the best.” Nuke some popcorn and make a night of it on ZOOM sharing screens. After all, what’s the point of taking a picture or video if we never look at them again, and tell the stories of our lives?