Managing thousands of photos and displaying your best works.

[Dr No]

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I've spent decades taking pictures and not really done anything with them, I literally don't have one of my own pictures up. I guess it's the act of shooting I like more.

I have spent time during lockdown going through my collection of images, consolidating my digital and film catalogues, scanning, editing, going through old DVD's—at this point in time there are 141,180 images and still a lot more to go.

Using Lightroom, I have always edited my favourites into a quick collection as I go, or marked contact sheets and negs, but still there are vast amounts I need to get through, edit down more and it is quite the undertaking, it will take weeks of constant sitting to go through it. I have also spent some time going through the whole collection and discovered some I missed the first time that I really like which doesn't help and I want to scour the rest.

I would really like to do something with my best images and I was wondering—what do others do these days to display them?

Do you do have any unusual/interesting tactic to edit down these amount of photos and how do you display them?

Do you use traditional prints, photobooks or show them digitally?

 I love books but you only see them when you get them out and I love wall prints but I have many hundreds that I want to show so not enough wall space.

I want them on permanent display and I was considering something like a very large monitor on cycle permanently—but I'm not sure that is right also. But building one into the wall seems plausible although I don't like the idea of power consumption in these environmentally conscious times.

I will also combine this with some traditional prints and photobooks of my favourites.

Does anyone have anything unique or interesting they have done that they are happy with? Does anyone know of something specific to the display of photos that is better than a monitor, say, a 65 inch digital picture frame? I saw a very thin 30" 4K picture frame but they don't seem to make it anymore and there is a very thin and matt screened 27" picture frame that looks very nice but it is unfortunately 16:9 format so that isn't right. Also I'm not sure about picture quality of them.

Sorry for the random stream post but interested to hear people's thoughts,and perhaps unusual tactics, on what they do these days to manage their very large catalogues and how they display their work.

 

[wda]

Dr No, you are not alone. I am partway through a similar exercise. My starting point was a complete re-editing programme, working year by year, randomly for visual variety, I try to be ruthless. Only the very best of similars are kept. In Lightroom I use flags, filtering out the rejects and rating the keepers. I am regaining hard disc space and my computer regains lost speed. I carefully review flagged rejects to ensure no potential keepers inadvertently go into the trash bin.

Along the way there are many rediscoveries. Historic pictures of younger members of the family are sent the now older young people for them to archive, sparing me the need before my services are suspended. They are surprised and  pleased to receive these files. I like to think the pictures will be of interest as generations grow up.

In preparation for planned photobook production, I use keywords and Collections to build up bodies of work in readiness. I make considerable use of filters and collections.

PRESENTATION  is a real challenge. There is no obvious answer. Pictures for the wall have to be very selective, but even a few is better than none to reflect a lifetime of photography. It is a very personal choice and is an expression of the photographer's achievements and interests. Lockdown has afforded time to start this mammoth task. My guess is that it will never be finished, but that is not a reason for not trying my best.

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[LocalHero1953]

My lockdown-to-unlockdown months have been spent totally remaking my website (see my signature), which is one way to show your photos. I started another thread about this, but apart from the need for refreshing, I wanted to make it easier to link my Lightroom archive to my website, so I can publish a LR collection as a web page.

A few years ago I entered the local open studios programme for a couple of summers (weekends in July). We have a spacious hallway and upstairs landing, where I fitted picture hanging systems (an aluminium rail supporting nylon cords to which I attach photos: all mounted/matted, but none framed. Each rail supports a themed set of 8-12 mounts. This system makes it easy to change the images from time to time, since you can adjust the positioning on the cords. In all I guess I have space for up to 50 A4-ish images, though there are only about 35 at the moment.

I am fortunate that my domestic facilities manager quite likes my photos, so there is no conflict about putting them on the wall. The block facing you as you come in the door is eight images of our children and grandchildren from the past year. There are dancers are on the stairs, some Omani Islamic interiors on the landing, and a block of large landscapes from Shetland in the living room. The latter two are ripe for changing.

As you can see from my website, most of my photography (before Covid-19 😒) is of music/theatre etc, so is used for publicity or for the performers, rather than printed or displayed by me.

[Dr No]

2 hours ago, wda said:

Dr No, you are not alone. I am partway through a similar exercise. My starting point was a complete re-editing programme, working year by year, randomly for visual variety, I try to be ruthless. Only the very best of similars are kept. In Lightroom I use flags, filtering out the rejects and rating the keepers. I am regaining hard disc space and my computer regains lost speed. I carefully review flagged rejects to ensure no potential keepers inadvertently go into the trash bin.

Along the way there are many rediscoveries. Historic pictures of younger members of the family are sent the now older young people for them to archive, sparing me the need before my services are suspended. They are surprised and  pleased to receive these files. I like to think the pictures will be of interest as generations grow up.

In preparation for planned photobook production, I use keywords and Collections to build up bodies of work in readiness. I make considerable use of filters and collections.

PRESENTATION  is a real challenge. There is no obvious answer. Pictures for the wall have to be very selective, but even a few is better than none to reflect a lifetime of photography. It is a very personal choice and is an expression of the photographer's achievements and interests. Lockdown has afforded time to start this mammoth task. My guess is that it will never be finished, but that is not a reason for not trying my best.

Thank you very much wda, that is very similar to my editing experience too. I have found it quite useful to set up smart collections based on star rating and then rate each picture 1-5 stars. It's the quickest an most efficient procedure I have found and is easy to do as you import. It's really the 5 stars I'm interested in and you feel it as soon as you look at the picture. But I find it easier to then review older photos that I've pre-rated. I also have smart collections set up for camera and lens metadata as I find it sometimes easy to remember which lens I was using when recalling photos.

Finding the best is literally like looking for a needle in a haystack. Then of course sorting those into categories and sets is another thing entirely but having a good idea of rating helps I find.

It's the reviewing of rejects, 1-2 ratings, that is really quite tedious and as you say you have to be so careful as I have found enough in there that shouldn't have been to be a concern and frustration.

That is a great point about offloading the older photos of then younger people. Good idea!

It's the historic rediscoveries I fund fascinating. We see things differently as we change and I have photos from 15 years ago that I marked as quite ordinary as now some of my favourites. It makes a very good case for never deleting anything and if you find yourself with time and inclination you can delve into some old 1 star shots and go gold digging which makes for a lovely surprise and gift from the past.

Yes I have been through periods of quite obsessively making keywords and those are the easiest to navigate and find. I wish I had of kept it up, I really thought it was wasted time for a while.

Presentation really is the tricky part. I think I will go for framed prints for the very best few, some photo books for collections and portability and as they make a nice focussed viewing. And then I really do want some random cycled images on some nicely presented monitors/digital picture frames that will display 1000 images or so. Maybe more than one. Daytime ambient brightness is a limiting factor however—My impenetrable under-ocean lair is much more controlled and obviously the better suited environment.

A 70 inch or larger monitor would be wonderful but I suspect picture quality will be a compromise.

I totally agree it will never be finished! I'm am quite surprised at how many I have changed my mind on over the years and some that are now absolute favourites. This is part the reason why I want to have them constantly cycling to help edit/discover/adjust over long term.

 

 

 

[Dr No]

1 hour ago, LocalHero1953 said:

My lockdown-to-unlockdown months have been spent totally remaking my website (see my signature), which is one way to show your photos. I started another thread about this, but apart from the need for refreshing, I wanted to make it easier to link my Lightroom archive to my website, so I can publish a LR collection as a web page.

A few years ago I entered the local open studios programme for a couple of summers (weekends in July). We have a spacious hallway and upstairs landing, where I fitted picture hanging systems (an aluminium rail supporting nylon cords to which I attach photos: all mounted/matted, but none framed. Each rail supports a themed set of 8-12 mounts. This system makes it easy to change the images from time to time, since you can adjust the positioning on the cords. In all I guess I have space for up to 50 A4-ish images, though there are only about 35 at the moment.

I am fortunate that my domestic facilities manager quite likes my photos, so there is no conflict about putting them on the wall. The block facing you as you come in the door is eight images of our children and grandchildren from the past year. There are dancers are on the stairs, some Omani Islamic interiors on the landing, and a block of large landscapes from Shetland in the living room. The latter two are ripe for changing.

As you can see from my website, most of my photography (before Covid-19 😒) is of music/theatre etc, so is used for publicity or for the performers, rather than printed or displayed by me.

Thanks LocalHero, I agree a website is wonderful to have and the thought of being able to publish straight from Lightroom would be a major plus. Thanks, I will look into that. Your website looks really wonderful—some great work on there!

Much of my quandary is purely for displaying photos in my house so prints, books and digital via monitor and also discovering out how I want to do it.

Your print system sounds ideal and good that you can swap things out easily. Something I will consider too. I would like to have framed prints of my best few works but also digital cycle maybe 1000 or more on some sort of monitor/tv that looks like a picture frame. Perhaps not literally but something that looks nicely presented, either built into a wall or something special on a console table etc. It seems there are many compromises with the TV/monitor/digital picture frame though that I willed to explore.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Dr No]

These TV's are actually quite interesting...up to 75". The 65" is about the right size and comparable in cost to several large high quality framed prints. 16:9 though...

At least the video looks enticing. 😁

https://www.samsung.com/uk/lifestyle-tvs/the-frame/highlights/

 

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Edited August 25, 2020 by Dr No