Bringing my photos in from the cloud
For years, I’ve kept my photos in a nicely-organized, dated folder hierarchy on my local machine. Eventually, the lure of easy management and ubiquitous access became impossible to ignore, so I spent some time using cloud-based services to manage, edit, and organize my photos.
I’m done doing that, now. I’m back to managing photos locally.
In the process of reeling things back from the cloud, I’ve updated my workflow a bit and will try describing it here.
The current year’s photos go in dated folders on my big iMac’s local hard drive. I’ve decided to call the top-level folder “Negatives”. So photos from today will go in ~/Pictures/Negatives/2019/11-November 2019. I chose to call it Negatives because that’s how I’m thinking about both film scans and RAW digital files. From here on I’ll refer to both scanned film and digital RAW files as “negatives”. Next year I’ll start a new folder and move last year’s off to the Synology.
I maintain a Capture One Pro “session” named “Capture One Inbox”, into which I import all new images. This also includes importing photos from my iPhone. I export periodically from Photos into C1. I think of my iPhone as just another camera/source. After culling and aggressively deleting from this inbox, I move the original files into the appropriate Negatives folder.
From there, I edit the photos I’m interested in using Capture One. Once editing is complete, I export a JPG into my “Digital Print Archive“. The DPA is where I live with the photos after editing. I don’t go back to look at the negatives unless I want to make a completely new version (e.g. black and white) of something.
Not relying on Lightroom or Capture One as the only way to view or catalog my images is comforting, but I still kind of want a catalog. That’s where I’ve started using the still-in-beta Photo Mechanic Plus from Camera Bits. I’ve used the original Photo Mechanic for many years as a tool to ingest, cull, rate, and caption photos. It’s by far the fastest method I know of for doing that. Photo Mechanic Plus introduces comprehensive cataloging to Photo Mechanic.
At first I didn’t take to Photo Mechanic Plus. I found it kind of weird and awkward to use. Subsequent betas have improved things, and I’ve become accustomed to the way it thinks. It’s quite powerful and flexible.
What I’m now doing is cataloging my Digital Print Archives. I’m not cataloging my negatives/RAW files. That seems weird, but really, once I’ve edited and exported a negative, odds are I don’t need to go back and dig through everything again. I truly am thinking of them as negatives.
A positive side effect of this is that I’m no longer tempted to tweak every single photo I view. In Lightroom or C1, as I’m browsing my catalog looking for something I invariably end up spending half the time just making “one more little tweak” to an image I was done with weeks or months ago. Nothing is preventing me from doing this now, it’s just that it’s become a deliberate act rather than a distraction.
I’ve changed my file naming process too. I no longer rename the original negatives. They remain named as they were coming out of the camera. Film scans get my “2019 Roll-NNN-FrameNo” format. When exporting to the DPA I rename them using the format “YYYYMMDD_ORIGINALFILENAME_TITLE.jpg”. It makes the filename a bit longer, but this way I can easily find the original negative based on the filename of the “print”.
From Photo Mechanic I can upload/share/archive whatever. Photo Mechanic is good at that stuff. And fast.
I admit that I also take advantage of Google Photos’ AI features. My entire DPA folder is automatically uploaded to Google Photos. This gives me a great way to browse and share collections from everywhere, without losing control of my library. I’ve decided to ignore my privacy concerns around this for now.
This all sounds pretty complicated when written out like that, but it’s basically this:
Import to C1->Edit->Export->Add to PM+->Share
The filesystem is my binder of negatives. Capture One is my enlarger. The filesystem is where I store and peruse boxes of prints. Photo Mechanic Plus is my librarian. Flickr/Instagram/Blogs are my gallery.
Thinking out loud about having the Leica Q
I own a lot of cameras. The above photo is from several years ago and it’s only gotten worse since then. What I don’t know is if it’s too many cameras.
Well of course it is, but what I need to decide is whether I mind having too many.
Inexpensive cameras are fine sitting on a shelf, waiting for a mood to strike. It’s the expensive ones that I wonder about. Specifically, it’s the Leica Q. What this is really about is whether to sell the Q.
I bought the Q as a reward after selling my house. I had promised myself I could buy whatever camera I wanted, and I wanted the Q. The problem is that I haven’t used it all that much. Not enough to justify the cost of having it, certainly.
And still, just picking up the camera makes me happy. I love just about everything about it, and I know me. I know that if I sell it I’ll regret it. I learned something long ago about my camera habit, and that is, “never sell a Leica”.
But I think of all the things I could do with the money from selling the Q and it really does seem like a mistake to keep it. On the other hand, I bought it under conditions I had agreed with myself about ahead of time. I don’t feel guilty having it. I mostly feel wasteful.
Sigh. The dilemma remains. Thanks for listening.
I am tired
The last week or so has been exhausting. I haven’t been busy or stressed or anything. I’m just tired. Tired of the news. Tired of having to decide things. Tired of changing my mind. Tired of changing my systems/software/processes.
I’m tired, and yet here I am still doing all the things that got me feeling this way in the first place.
The Leica M4 is back in action
Finally, I’ve gotten my beloved Leica M4 out of storage. It’s been in a case in my basement since last year’s move and that’s a shame.
The camera was made in 1966 and I bought it in 2009. It’s seen regular, if sporadic, use since then. I think it’s beautiful, and I especially like that it has the M3-style levers.
I have the tiny and terrific Voightlander 35mm Color Skopar on it. That lens is almost _too_small, but it makes fine images and was inexpensive.
It feels good to be using this setup again. I’ll run a few rolls through it and see if I still become fatigued shooting with no meter at all.
Keeping a Digital Print Archive
I shoot RAW with my digital cameras, and edit in Lightroom CC. Non-destructive RAW editing is awesome, but the only good way to actually see the edits is by using Lightroom (or whichever app was used to do the editing). What happens if one day I stop using it?
Historically, I’ve exported each processed jpg file right next to the original RAW file. Switching to Lightroom CC has made this tricky because the originals are kept in Adobe’s cloud and CC’s export features are rather basic.
To help remedy this, and to ensure long-term viability of my photos, I’m creating a “Digital Print Archive”. Any photo worth editing is exported to a separate jpg file in a YYYY/MM/ folder structure on my main drive. I think of each exported image as a “digital print”.
I manage this process using my Rating system for photos in Lightroom CC.
Lightroom CC does not have color labels, so I’ve had to modify my system a bit. I used to use labels to indicate process/export status but now I’m using star ratings instead.
Here’s how my star ratings work in CC:
- ⭐ — Pay attention to this image
- ⭐⭐ — Has been processed/edited
- ⭐⭐⭐ — Has been exported to the Digital Print Archive
- ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — A favorite
This system gives me a curated, organized set of “burned” copies of my original RAW files and requires no specific software to view or manage them. I’m testing Photo Mechanic “Plus” as a way of cataloging the archive, and it’s working quite well.
See also: baty.net
I’ve resurrected baty.net, so what happens to this blog? Nothing. It’s not going anywhere, but I’m looking at other was to make use of it. Blot is great at doing stuff with images, html files, etc. Maybe I’ll make it a photo blog. Or maybe it’ll become about a specific topic.
While I think through this, you’ll probably notice more new posts at baty.net.
Org-download and ox-hugo
One drawback of using a static blogging tool is the relative difficulty of dealing with images. Images must be copied to the proper folder and then links need to be added manually. I’ve created a few ways to make this easier this using TextExpander, but today I discovered org-download.
This extension facilitates moving images from point A to point B.
I’m using this with ox-hugo and it works very well. I first added the following to my Emacs config…
(use-package org-download
:ensure t
:init
(setq org-download-timestamp "-%Y-%m-%d"))Then, at the top of my blog file (all-posts.org), I set the following buffer-specific variable…
-*- mode: Org; org-download-image-dir: "~/microblog/static/img"; -*-Now, to add an image to a post, I just drag it from the finder into Emacs and the image is copied to my images folder (microblog/static/image) and a link is inserted into the buffer with the proper path, etc. The image is even shown inline by default so I can see what I’m dealing with. What a treat!
The post looks like this after dragging an image from the Finder…
* Posts
** 2019
*** My New Post with an image
#+DOWNLOADED: file:/Users/jbaty/Desktop/test.png @ 2019-07-02 16:44:58
[[file:../static/img/Posts/test-2019-07-02.png]]
The date stamp can be appended during the copy and is configured with org-download-timestamp.
It’s pretty slick, and takes most of the hassle out of adding images to blog posts when using Hugo/ox-hugo.
Hosting infrastructure changes this weekend
I’ve made a number of fun changes to how things are run around here, server-wise. The goal was to move as much as possible back to my self-hosted EC2 instance and remove some 3rd-party services while I was at it.
Here’s what happened.
I’ve moved the baty.net archive from Github/Netlify to a static site on my server. Netlify is awesome but I’m capable of managing my own server, SSL, etc. I lose the CI and CDN portions, but those right now are less important to me than keeping things together and minimizing moving parts. Plus, I get access to the web server logs this way.
I’ve replaced 3rd-party analytics with GoAccess. It’s not as easy to spot normal visitor traffic, but I do get stats on just about everything else, without dealing with a tracking script. As long as I have access to the web server logs, GoAccess should be fine.
I’ve moved my microblog (micro.baty.net) to a Hugo-based static site, also hosted on my EC2 instance. To make posting easier, I’ve set up ox-hugo so every post is just a single headline in one big org-mode file. To publish updates, I’ve created a small Makefile and simply run make deploy, which rsyncs everything up to the server.
I’ve started moving my private Git repos to my own gitea instance. Super lightweight and private. To upgrade, I just replace a single binary and restart the service.
All of the above are served using the Caddy web server instead of nginx. Caddy does all sorts of nice stuff right out of the box (e.g. SSL and pretty directory listings) and configuration couldn’t be simpler.
I have a few cleanup tasks left and some automation to build but it’s quite fun having everything under my own roof and tinkering in whatever ways I see fit.
Pinning Butterflies
Question: what is to be done with the stuff after it has been cataloged and stored? Are we pinning butterflies for the sake of pinning them, or is there a moment of beholding, and re-use/re-mix down the line?
Save and make? Transform?
This raises a great question: Which butterflies to pin1?
I’m not one to think that we need to carefully archive everything, but there are many seemingly useless things that should be saved but aren’t. One never knows what will prove valuable over time. Or what might be re-mixed in the future. I fall into the better-safe-than-sorry camp, but determining what to archive and what to just let go can be a crazy-making problem.
I’ve never heard it expressed as “pinning butterflies” before. I love that. Thanks Eli!↩︎
Bitcoin
I don’t even resemble an expert in cryptocurrency, but my gut says the whole thing is some sort of mass delusion. I mean, read Twitter after any price fluctuation (up or down), and it’s wall-to-wall rationalization.
These people are just so deeply enamoured with the idea of crypto that they seem to have lost all sense of reason. I don’t want to call them crazy, but I kind of do.
Anyway, I own a little Bitcoin, Etherium, Litecoin, and one other that I don’t remember. I don’t spend more on it than I can afford to lose, but I admit to hedging my bets with the upside potential.
It’s sort of a Pascal’s wager in that if I’m wrong, I still win.
It’s just that my timing is, as always, terrible.
Bitcoin graph