The Great Photo Cull: Please Send Help
Precious moments, cultural adventures and work-related action photos
While ordering a new laptop for my business, due to the dreaded whirring sound that signifies the end of my trusty 10 year old Macbook Pro, my local Apple dealer did a quick storage check and found that my photo library - 46,000 + photos - was using up most of the space on my laptop.
I’ve been meaning to sort these photos out for 5 years a while now. At the end of some months I scan recent photos and delete duplicates. I’ve also worked on taking less photos, or I favourite my preferred photo from a series of photos I take of the same moment. But I am still stuck with a photo surplus and an inability to let go of and cull the multiple versions of precious memories.
Do you have an abundance of photos on your phone or devices too?
Something needs to change if I am to finally stop using (and paying) for duplicate storage I do not need. As I consider how I may approach this culling of my visual diary, or at least attempt to make a start by creating folders to invite some sense of order into this oversupply of memories, I’ve been thinking about why I do not trust ‘the cloud’ as the only place to store them safely. It is irrational, given that I solely rely on cloud storage for all work-related files.
And so I am emotionally preparing myself for a digital spring clean. Today’s update is a photo dump of sorts. The highlights from a sample month to help me explore more deeply why I take so many photos, and the role this ritual plays in my life.
Perhaps it will help me decide on some useful categories for the albums or folders as an important first step in the culling process.
Precious moments
One of the many reasons I enjoy taking photos with my phone is to capture a precious moment, most often in nature or when I’m with friends or family or when one of my pets does something amusing.
Here’s some examples from a sample month - April.
Cultural adventures
A source of multiple photos that I find hard to cull is when I attend an art gallery, exhibition, book launch or [insert any other type of cultural event] and I take photos as a way to capture my experience. Part of me imagines I will take the time to patiently create a reel or story for Instagram to capture the event highlights. Occasionally I do, but more often I do not. I’m either swept up in interesting conversation post-event with the person who accompanied me, or I decide not to due to the performative nature of documenting all of my movements. There’s a “knock, knock” inside me right now. It’s one of my Inner Voices wishing to remind me “Karen - you are literally writing about the photos you captured and talking about your movements”.
I / we digress.1
Work related ‘action’ photos
When I am on-site training a client I try to remember to ask them to take a photo of me in ‘action’. This is so I can post it on LinkedIn over the next few weeks as part of a case study I may share, or a simple thank you for the opportunity to work with their team. Here’s an example from on-site training I ran with the team at Oxford University Press at their sales conference. Their Marketing Manager, Sarah, is lots of fun and was more than happy to take a series of photos for me. Her personal favourite is the photo of me pointing to the camera.
Notes for my future self
There are many photos on my phone where I’ve captured moments in time as forms of ‘notes to self’ - information or ideas I’d like to one day return to. It is in this way that my photos are a visual diary of sorts, reminding me to return to important notes or facts I discover along the way.
April’s photos include a new service at my library (Library of Things), screenshots of potential academic supervisors from University of Melbourne, a picture of the County Court to research the story behind the woman on their building in Melbourne’s CBD, family crests as part of a project to complete the Splatt family tree (on my mother’s side) and learn more about the women in my family. Do we have Celtic roots? What stories have not been told in our family?
So far I have uncovered two hand drawn family crests (thanks to my Mum’ sister, who is still alive) and a 3rd great grandmother, on my father’s side, who was gaoled and hanged in Goulburn for killing her husband. The unverified notes on ancestry.com state that in 1859:
Thomas was killed with a hammer, burnt in the open hearth inside the house, chopped up and scattered around the property by his wife Ellen nee Deasy. Sleeping inside the house at the time were two daughters and Ellen's elderly mother.
It made me chuckle (on the inside) when my Dad explained the version of the family history he’d uncovered and written about was called a hagiography. He defined this as only shining a light on the positive information. When I looked up the meaning it’s described as a biography that treats its subject with undue reverence. I can feel a re-telling of parts of my family’s history if I ever document his side of the family.
Here’s a snapshot of images from these notes to future self.
Books and my garden
The books I read and photos of what’s happening in my garden also stay on my phone because I use them as reference points for some of my updates here on Substack. An upcoming update will include a snapshot of what’s happening in my Winter garden, and allow me to hold on to more photos with the excuse of sharing them with you here.
With love & gratitude.
KPH
I acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which I live and pay my respects to Indigenous Elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be, Aboriginal land.
If you are new to these parts, I talk about the role of my Inner Voices in this update.
Digital photos are so hard to cull!! That story of your ancestor killing her husband has me intrigued. What a story!