Organizing 12,000 Photos? Why?

I keep my photos on Flickr.com. It only costs me $25.00 a year, and I decided it would be a great way to conserve all the recent shots (and some of the families' vintage material, too).
I felt that flood, fire or looting might interfere with my memories if I didn't keep a hard copy online.
I can upload 200 photos and the site tells me that I have uploaded 0% of my quota for the day, or it is massive storage, without advertising the idea.
One can share images with fellow photographers, leave and receive comments or mail, so it is a kind of pen pal club for people who don't have the time to explain everything.

Blogging Photographs

I made a small photo book a couple of years ago, and I really enjoyed editing and publishing the work.
When the time came to annotate the works that I had chosen, I found that I could write up a storm, in fact- I had secrets that only a few people should be reading. I gave upon the idea of blogging my photos for this reason, and also because I am not sure how long it would take to blog 12,000 photographs.

Balls

Balls, balls, balls! When I posted umpteen images of vintage Christmas balls in September, there may have been some initial interest in the glass content, it is true. Argh- what frustration I have run into...I annotated the description page of every photo on my desktop. I spent half an hour minutely studying the White Gift stories of the generous Jewry or royalty, and its gift giving to the tiny or the needy - all preserved in finite amounts of glass or glass chroming.
To my dismay, when I decided to set them onto Flickr for my friends and family in the arts, or for the collectors to whom I am connected as a contact, all of the info had wiped off my photos.
I waited nearly a year before looking at them again, and decided to post them tabula rasa for the most part, with a little titling to stimulate collector interest.

I had unfortunately run into the old fall-into-the-tree-when- skunkily-drunk routine, an activity most surely inherited by my husband from his forefathers, as I am sure most men have.
So, I had kept the precious stories in broken form, and I published these, too- as if casting transparencies of crumbs upon the laughing waters of the visually literate Internet.

Making Sets

Why didn't I think of this before? I started to organize sets during this Virgoan month of September, because I had so much from the last few years. i primitively began with the colours of the rainbow, colour by colour (almost finished). Here was my covenant in the love that the great Creator has bestowed upon me- the love of colours, shapes, textures, of life proliferate and sounding.
I spent about a week reissuing my images in such a way that I made sense to myself. I had to evaluate how far I had progressed (at all) in the art of photography.
I have no difficulty making graphics form my photos, and love to play, but this has meant leaving painting, drawing, crafting and many other arts skills behind. I may now paint in changing opalescence, gems, moving scapes that allow me to publish sounds and text and graphics and images- either my own art or photos and videos. It is most tremendously exciting, but it is also a new set of media for me.Basically, I might as well be any eighteen year old student wowing at what I can do to stun, bedazzle and speak to friends and opponents alike. I make protest art, publish dark, mysterious Hallowe'en videos and photo sets, dash around parks looking for our nations' history, and I have done a lot of this. So much. I decided to organize my sets to see what I had not done, yet.
Clicking to the Explore page of Flickr.com offers some of the most vigourously brilliant, exciting photo sets in the world. It never ceases to inspire me, and I do this regularly now.
When someone published a brilliant set of window images (boy, was I jealous!) I decided to garner the window shots I had taken over the years. For some reason, I remember tons of storefront shots that are not on Flickr. My memory fails me, and it is due to Flickrs' huge storage capacity that I can gather the harvest of my street interest. I made my own set of window images, and I loved them. I realized that I had shot them because I love them. I love glass things, reflections, transparencies, the freedom of gaze, if you will.

After that it was easy to collect my stars and my lanterns. I collect star images and real lanterns. There again- where were so many of my images? Lost to photo albums of the past, edited away, maybe? There is a good reality to taking stock, and that is that a photographer can always take a shot again, if the subject has not broken or got wrinkled as the case may be. (Sort-of, anyway.) I go to parks where the earth has turned up wonders I could not imagine existed, and the next year (or even minute) the image is lost forever, or not due back for seven years, who knows. No, I must not lose out on those wonderful discoveries and memories. But maybe blogging the way that I spout off is not appropriate. There is always someone who will come and spoil a scene or even steal a priceless image away.
Portrait photography has been calling me for some time, and yet I have not used my legacy tripod, any lighting, scenes; play scenarism that the students get into first. I stop for a second. Note: make time to take real portraits with the tripod. Note 2: Take photos of friends while the sun shines; I just lost another one to the chaotic cosmos out there.

Wonders

I wonder at the numerous dark images that I have created, and mourn the innocence that would allow me to take child and baby photos. Predators and commercial exploitation have alarmed parents so badly with regard to what ills an unknown photographer might produce, if they poke too many lenses into too many baby faces. In the old days, of course, we were young parents and took images of each others' kids. Do I have to take an elders' inventory, or what? Personally, I modelled for professional artists with my husband when we were young arts students. I was vastly pregnant at the time, and I got sketched by Harold Town among other notables. But wait, I can't ask young mothers to pose for personal shots like this. Social ills have inhibited many of us (that includes me).
There are so many schools of thought,and perhaps taking stock as I have begun to do will evoke some new photographic journey. Maybe it will piss me off and make me draw things again. That's the last thing I thought of when I examined my addiction to the arts world.

Anyway, it is important to keep folders and files clear, and to take stock in ones activities. Why is anything worth the effort? Who are we as publishers? Is it a call, or a dream or a geekified madness? I had great fun calling the government balls, and casting the sinful lot into someone elses' net. Didn't I have enough toys or hugs as a kid? Sometimes I try so hard to show people what is important in life, taking pains to illustrate or to title and annotate online.

Maybe this blog will turn into a photo blog, but it is so controlling. It means that I am focusing people upon what I can see by relying upon their readership rather than their spiritual aspect on vision.

I question the yeeearggh stage of journalistic shrieking in myself, and in others. Is this alerting people better than the solid photo journalism that brought you streams of tears and slams of outrage - the image of those children running form napalm, the burns and tears and blood mingling into one hopeless horrifying shot at high tech warfare, at the US of yesteryear.

I do have shots like this, but somehow I am intimidated. I don't want to exploit delicate situations, and I only hint at them, at least online.

Note: balls to self, and make more pretty decos this year, to cheer self up. Balls, I agree.

May the good light shine upon you.

Fellowship

Hi,

I am trying to post a little message, although I doubt that too many people ever read it. Anyway, hi- happy times to all for Decembers' festivities!

I have posted a URL in the field link dropdown, Go to the blog on Jewfaq.org to let you know what sort of recreation I have allowed myself for the day (the 12th of Dec 07). Usually, I have no time for any of the things that I mean to do, because the work time is interrupted by the needs to housekeep, shop, answer the phone, make lunch and coffee for my husband (who works at night) and so on.

I just thought that you might find the site owners' blog quite an interesting and controvertial document. I enjoyed it quite a bit. The posting for the 11th of Decembr '07 is an article about the true spelling of Channuckah. Americans spell it Hanukah, I think. I'm confused!

I have successfully published a work about interfaith experience recently. On top of two years writing time, my edit, formatting and graphics took a hefty 10 months out of the year, believe it or not. Researching the spelling for the word Channukah took a minute or so, and I was a bit embarrassed to find out how much the English spelling had been modified. I have grade school spelling of some universal things and, like many older people , I watch the world go bye and come again, wearing noma lights and pumpkin comments on it.

I don't know - we elders are die hards about some changes- why isn't our education good enough (we inwardly feel)?
As youth, we all quoted the saying "ya can't teach an old dog new tricks". I believed that as a young person. Now, I am happy to say that I can write an online blog, do xhtml for my sites, use a digital camera and an online photos post, email friends anywhere- all because a friend believed that people of any age could learn and improve.

My friend busted his ass getting a computer purchased for us. He was terribly poor, like me. At first, he took me to the library to learn how to use Windows on the computers donated to libraries by Industry Canada. I am still grateful to them for the chance at learning. But, more to the point, I am grateful to my beloved friend and companion.

He believed in us. He pounded away with great frustration upon the new computer, while I secretly worried that a computer would explode, if I just touched it the wrong way. My friend had grown up with A.D.D. Attention Deficit Disorder.

A.D.D. is actually mostly from mercury poisoning, and it is one of three types of autism. In the aged of days (our school years) educators had not come to grips with the needs of children who suffered from ADD.

The schools' systems segregated these special children, treating them as if they were retarded.

My friend told me about his journey within his own set of statistics, and about how the teachers yelled at him, and how they insulted him, so often. I noticed the angry fanaticism with which he tried (though valiantly) to teach me about computer use. I realized that he was acting out the cruelty of his teachers in grade school.

Now that we have taken Community College courses (mine, web- his, computer repair and DOS) we were both able to see that he had way greater capabilities than educators had allowed for,or believed in, in the past. He, for instance, committed DOS and the necessities for computer setup to memory, and passed with the highest percentage of anyone who had taken that program.

He is terribly humble, and he often has to repeat and repeat efforts to untangle the meaning and use of some of these systems. But now, seven years later, he is a web site host. He hosts our various websites himself! These skills, web design included, make him a web developer ( pretty close to a computer scientist).

My Hanukah day of creativity and relaxation centre upon him, today. He has to go to work (he works as an industrial cleaner for bucks). Today I express gratefulness for the hope in his heart, and in the hearts of those educators who have cherished each of our true abilities, until they glow with purpose, and transcend into our own spiritual identity, within the great body of faith that runs and supports planet earth.

Let the candles be lit for love, for faith, for the power in each of us to believe in higher purpose. May they shine for the love of humanity, for the hope within each of us that there will always be a better road ahead.

We both (I grew up with epilepsy) are two little humble ducks. We have moderate means, and we work too hard for what little we earn. But we can still make our mark, now - as worldwide contributors to and through internet processes.

If we cannot afford to buy books, or have too little time to go to the library, we are able to reach a wealth of information offered for free on W3. I have even published my book through an Internet process (Lulu.com) Actually, I have just finished my second work- a photo arts book called Deep Purple.

I am going to light candles, trees, lanterns, and hearts (with little gifts) this year, like every year. But there is nothing deeper than the true light of determined faith in people like my beloved husband. And he claims to be an atheist?

To you, the people who feel shunned and refuted as full human beings- African Americans, Jews, des religieux, people with disabilities, Islam - to you I wish peace, joy, merriment, acceptance, and especially, the determination to succeed that comes from within your own sense of love and faith.

To all, Happy Holidays, and as Ann Landers used to say "Kwitchabitchen!" !!!

ps:           If you want to read "herstory" of a journey into interfaith, here is my book site address:

Sues' Publication storefront