I don’t make new year resolutions. I don’t understand why one has to wait until the new calendar year begins to start on a medium/long-term course of action, or just simply to do something. I just do whatever it is that I want to do/achieve whenever it makes sense to do so.
Which brings me to the hundreds of photos I took in summer 2012 when I was in Hokkaido, Japan with my family for a holiday. While I’ve renamed the files and sorted them in folders (chronologically and destination-specific), I’ve not processed most of these RAW files and keep procrastinating.
It’s high time I work on them and hopefully will finish doing so by the end of this month. Perhaps the memories from those warm summer days in Hokkaido – onsen, good food especially the seafood, beautiful scenery, family time – would also help take my mind off the winter chill in Brussels!
This ‘situation’ with Japan photo folder is repeated amongst several other folders that were created in 2012 and 2013, which includes: Oran, Algeria; Seville, Asturias and San Sebastian in Spain; Istanbul and Bursa in Turkey; Hong Kong; Venice; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; London; Paris.
I shall gradually work my way through these photos, starting with those taken in 2012, so that I can update my external back-up hard drive in the next few months’ time. Wish me luck!
Angelina Hue 
I really want to visit Hokkaido for the birds. I agree about resolutions. My plans evolve rather than spring into a fully fledged state. Sometimes they are finished, sometimes they drift and die. I still have RAW files from 2008 to process!
I’ve heard about the wildlife in Hokkaido, especially the “dancing” cranes in winter in Kushiro, the Japanese macaques/ snow monkeys in Jigokudani, and the brown bears. Given the island’s size and abundance of untouched nature, I imagine there are many different species of the birds to be discovered.
I only started taking RAW files in 2011 as I didn’t know how to process them previously. It’s interesting to see some of the photos that were taken several months/years ago as sometimes you see them differently : )
You got yourself a mighty project!
The first time I came across new year’s resolutions was in english language class; it seemed weird that people would go through this only to forget them shortly after, then repeat the process next year… But, hey, whatever works, as they say 🙂
Some people either forget or give up! I just had an idea just minutes ago while going through the pictures from Hokkaido – maybe I’ll make a photo book and surprise my family with it 🙂 That would be an even mightier project! *breathe*
Happy New Year. Sounds like a great project. Me too, organising older work. Such a big task and a huge shift with digital files, archiving, processing etc. Question: After you process your RAW files do you then archive/copy them back to another separate external drive as well as keep the original RAWs on a back up system too? I’m still learning how to arrange a workflow… humf! Happy organising!
I might have just answered my own question here. Perhaps it’s perfectly fine to just save a folder for the original RAW files and a folder for the newly processed files on the same external drive for archiving purposes? Tell me if I’m way off course here : ))
Hi Tanya,
Happy New Year!
For now, I keep all my RAW and processed files together in the same folder on my computer, as well as duplicate on the external hard drive.
Before I start processing anything, I’ll go through the RAW files and delete what I know I won’t keep or use. Following which I rename the files or the folder, depending on what I’ve photographed (e.g. photos from an event vs. a multi-city holiday where I’ve been to many places). In a way, I use my photos to help keep travel notes!
I’m not sure if my way of archiving/ sorting photo files is the most effective or efficient, but it is what makes most sense and is intuitive for me (especially important when it comes to looking for certain images). How do you archive yours?
Hi Angelina.
Thanks for your reply. My archiving is really just getting underway as I have only just switched properly from film to digital last year with the purchase of my first dslr. And I have only just begun shooting RAW in the last few months.
I think your method is perfectly good. And I am trying to follow a similar way. Basically, after downloading onto my computer I make folders by year and event, tossing out any outtakes. Then I make a copy to an external drive for safe keeping.
Back over on the computer is where I edit and process the RAW files. Once I’ve completed an editing job, I copy those edited files also to the external drive to stay with the originals in a separate folder labled ‘edit’ and by the same project/date. That was the part, I’m not sure I was doing right. But I figure my computer is saving both an original and an edited version on the hard drive.
When I work on my photo organising/edit program I just see my work as I go along i.e. the ‘edited version’, even though my original is also stored there somewhere too. I use Aperture but I wish for Adobe Lightroom some time soon. I’m still learning as I go….
Whew! Thanks for listening and sharing anyway. : ) I enjoy seeing your photos and hearing your travel stories too.
Best.
I’m not as rigorous as you are with making back-ups of my files – I do this about once a year (if I don’t procrastinate) and I really should do it more often!
My photo editing process is also longer than most people who use Aperture / Lightroom as I use two softwares: Firstly, with RPP to convert my RAF RAW files to Tiff format, then I run them through Adobe Photoshop. I use a Fuji x100 and the RAW files cannot be processed directly by Adobe Photoshop while the default RAW converter software provided by Fuji doesn’t match up to the great quality produced by the camera itself.
There’s a lot on forums about photo editing and archiving. Experts abound 🙂
I enjoy your blog too, especially the diptychs!
When I work on my photo organising/edit program I just see my work as I go along i.e. the ‘edited version’, even though my original is also stored there somewhere too. I use Aperture but I wish for Adobe Lightroom some time soon. I’m still learning as I go….