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The fact that this is a problem widely felt enough to be reported in the WSJ is a side effect of consumerism run rampant. Advertising campaigns that conflate hi

The fact that this is a problem widely felt enough to be reported in the WSJ is a side effect of consumerism run rampant. Advertising campaigns that conflate high resolution with high quality combined with a "you can do anything" attitude have persuaded millions of people that they're great photographers when in fact they're just taking photos and videos which even they will likely never watch. Don't get me wrong, the technology is great and it's enabling some really talented people to do really awesome things. But those people spend literally years learning to compose shots, and hours after each photo session poring over thousands of duds to find the few gems. The average person isn't doing that. Let's face it, if you want the sunset in Puerto Rico captured in a photo you're better off letting the professionals do it. There are other definitions of quality. I have a lifetime of photos too, but my lifetime of photos amounts to about 300 photos taken over 30 years. They're not well-composed. A lot of them were shot on crappy hardware and it shows. A lot of them are pictures I didn't take. But every single one of them takes me back to something I care about and makes me smile. My vacation photos are of me and of people I care about, with things we liked. I don't need cloud storage to sync those 300 photos between my devices. They don't require organization; they're stored by date and time and that's it--I know where every photo was taken and who is in it by looking at it. The photos are stored on my laptop hard drive, a backup drive, and on my personal server. I sync them with rsync but if that didn't exist there are a dozen other ways that would work as well. If you're not a professional or trying to be one, then the solution isn't waiting to be invented. The solution is to stop taking so many pointless photos. Is sifting through hundreds of photos really improving your life? Do you really care about all of those photos, or could you figure out before you even take the photo which ones you're going to care about? And taking all those photos has other downsides too that have nothing to do with poor storage solutions. Trying to capture everything for the future prevents people from living in the present. I see people at concerts all the time watching the entire concert through their phones. Are you really going to rewatch that poorly lit video with its shitty sound later? You're damaging a present experience that could be awesome in exchange for a mediocre future experience that might not happen. Not to mention how this affects other people's experience: if you're tall it's not your fault, but if you're holding a phone between me and the artist I paid to see you're being an asshole. TL;DR: The best way to organize a lifetime of photos is to stop taking ones that don't matter.

rasengan0 12y ago
Awesome reply; you had me with rsync. I do the same: quality over quantity, keeping it simple.
flatfilefan 12y ago
Not taking photos is equal to deleting them. And this is the hard part - which to delete? Not sure how much, how far you travel and how various activities are you participating. When I bring my photos from a distant country people are interested to look at them. And different people find different pictures interesting. Some people want to see all the pictures of penguins, while others like to see architecture. Others still happy to see tens of different motorbikes from a trade fare. Often the ones I thought were worth deleting are the interesting ones for the people. So unfortunately deleting them right away (or not taking) is not an option to me. Also as usual - telling people stop doing things they like is hardly helpful.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > Not taking photos is equal to deleting them. I get that my post was long so it makes sense that you didn't read it, but maybe don't respond to posts you didn't read? Taking photos and then deleting them is not equivalent to not taking them. It takes time and storage, exchanges a present experience for a mediocre potential future experience. I already explained this in my previous post. > When I bring my photos from a distant country people are interested to look at them. And different people find different pictures interesting. Some people want to see all the pictures of penguins, while others like to see architecture. Others still happy to see tens of different motorbikes from a trade fare. Are any of these things photos you have to take? Or could you find better versions of these photos, taken by professional photogs, online, and send it to people with a "I saw this"? > Often the ones I thought were worth deleting are the interesting ones for the people. Often when I'm taking a photo, I think, "<X friend> would really like to see this." These make up a small fraction of my photos and after I send them to the person I delete them. But the difference here is that on a trip I take 15 photos instead of 10. All this says about you is that you're not approaching your photo-taking intentionally. None of the objections you've brought up couldn't be solved with 15 seconds of thought. > Also as usual - telling people stop doing things they like is hardly helpful. I'm not telling you to do anything. If you want to spend money and time viewing your life through a small screen so that a few people might find some of your photos interesting, go ahead. People like all sorts of things. Some people like cocaine. But it's easy to get caught up in short-term dopamine-releasing behaviors and sometimes those behaviors do more harm than good even though they feel good. It makes sense to take a step back occasionally and look at the effect of you behaviors you enjoy on your overall happiness.

rasengan0 12y ago

Awesome reply; you had me with rsync. I do the same: quality over quantity, keeping it simple.

flatfilefan 12y ago

Not taking photos is equal to deleting them. And this is the hard part - which to delete? Not sure how much, how far you travel and how various activities are you participating. When I bring my photos from a distant country people are interested to look at them. And different people find different pictures interesting. Some people want to see all the pictures of penguins, while others like to see architecture. Others still happy to see tens of different motorbikes from a trade fare. Often the ones I thought were worth deleting are the interesting ones for the people. So unfortunately deleting them right away (or not taking) is not an option to me. Also as usual - telling people stop doing things they like is hardly helpful.

copsarebastards 12y ago
> Not taking photos is equal to deleting them. I get that my post was long so it makes sense that you didn't read it, but maybe don't respond to posts you didn't read? Taking photos and then deleting them is not equivalent to not taking them. It takes time and storage, exchanges a present experience for a mediocre potential future experience. I already explained this in my previous post. > When I bring my photos from a distant country people are interested to look at them. And different people find different pictures interesting. Some people want to see all the pictures of penguins, while others like to see architecture. Others still happy to see tens of different motorbikes from a trade fare. Are any of these things photos you have to take? Or could you find better versions of these photos, taken by professional photogs, online, and send it to people with a "I saw this"? > Often the ones I thought were worth deleting are the interesting ones for the people. Often when I'm taking a photo, I think, "<X friend> would really like to see this." These make up a small fraction of my photos and after I send them to the person I delete them. But the difference here is that on a trip I take 15 photos instead of 10. All this says about you is that you're not approaching your photo-taking intentionally. None of the objections you've brought up couldn't be solved with 15 seconds of thought. > Also as usual - telling people stop doing things they like is hardly helpful. I'm not telling you to do anything. If you want to spend money and time viewing your life through a small screen so that a few people might find some of your photos interesting, go ahead. People like all sorts of things. Some people like cocaine. But it's easy to get caught up in short-term dopamine-releasing behaviors and sometimes those behaviors do more harm than good even though they feel good. It makes sense to take a step back occasionally and look at the effect of you behaviors you enjoy on your overall happiness.