I wrote it over and over again and the more I reread it, the more I feel like rewriting it in an endless loop of thoughts and rework. In the end I decided to publish it and collect your feedback, criticism, pats on the back or slaps in the face!
On the one hand I hope to help those who like me have switched over the years to using only FOSS software for photography and give direction, on the other hand I hope to gather more experiences from those who are more experienced and want to share suggestions.
Feel free to ask questions and drop comments here or in my mailbox.
Iâve briefly skimmed it and plan on reading it in depth later so maybe these thoughts will change. Iâve been working on writing up something about my personal darktable workflow for macro photography and I definitely understand the endless loop of rethinking things
On one hand, I like the comprehensive view and inclusion of non-technical things and things not related strictly to photography like backups. On the other hand, the section about your culling process, for example, could be a lot more succinct and even expanded on in a separate article entirely.
Regardless, kudos for writing it all up. I think itâs good to do this type of thing even if just for yourself.
I had started with a series of scattered notes. Then I tried to connect them. Then I wrote one long post, but it seemed to focus only on the technical part. Then I removed the âlinux nerd stuffâ and tried to focus on the creative process. But in photography, if we talk about process, it is very difficult to separate the two.
Iâll leave the post to decant, maybe re-read it in a monthâs time, integrating unclear points.
I was finally able to give it a more in depth read through. It feels like the goal is to be an overview of your process and a summary of your journey using FOSS, and not necessarily a technical deep dive into any particular topic, which it does well.
This does read like a very personal experience and is perfectly fine as-is. If you were looking to make it a more formal type of article I think my earlier comments are still relevant.
I liked the breakdown summary of the seven steps of the process. Itâs stuff thatâs intuitive but I liked seeing it plainly laid out like you did. One thing that could be useful is briefly mentioning the software you use for each part of the process. This would make it serve as both a summary of the workflow and a summary of the software youâre using. It also reinforces that there are FOSS tools for each of those pieces of the workflow.
If I ever make another zine I will definitely checkout PenPot and youâve convinced me that I should finally learn how to use LaTeXâŚ
I read the whole post and made quite a few notes from it, so thanks for that.
Mind if I ask you a few questions:
How do you store your inspiration images? Is that on Obsidian too? or is Obsidian for notes on a particular image and moodboard to just create a feel for the shoot and maybe send it to others (model etc.)
Iâm sure this has been asked before, but any reason for using both Digikam and DT for tagging and curating?
The start rating you use - 4 for prints and 5 for portfolio. Do you not have an overlap between the photos you print and the really good ones for your portfolio? or is 4 star a temporary rating?
Just a quick note: The link, on your website, to PenPot is to a .com domain and is unresolvable. I think you want penpot.appâŚor maybe a link to the github?
Thanks! I fixed it and never replied, sorry about that. I also realised that the link to the original article is broken but I cannot update the original post.
Thank you @boredphoto that is an interesting and helpful article. I enjoyed reading about your approach to curation because it is something I need to do myself. My photo library is out of control and difficult to search.
Thanks for this. I think I missed it when you posted a year ago. I know what my file organization/culling process is, but Iâve never bothered to document it.
Something that your web site post hit on that had not really gotten more than a slight thought from me before: itâs a good thing to document the organization of your photos so that when you are gone your family can understand the organization and find the photos they want to find. You know they will want to display the good ones.
This is a great idea. Itâs on my to-do list now!
I do keep an ongoing âlessons learned the hard wayâ document, where I try to turn my mistakes into learning opportunities instead of something to repeat. It doesnât live next to my photos though.
Thanks!