Last month I took nearly 1300 pictures with a borrowed camera.  I’m expecting my very own camera later this week which I think will lead to another spree of pictures being taken.  I know, over time, that I’ll be collecting a ton of pictures.  Which has got me thinking about how to deal with them.

Currently, I’m using Adobe Lightroom to import and post process the pictures.  The import process takes the pictures off of the memory card and places them into folders on my PC based on the date they were taken.  As I look at and process these pictures, the really good ones – the ones I intended to upload to Flickr and talk about here - I place into a “touch up” folder and then use the Flickr Uploadr to post them to my Flickr photostream.

This weekend I did my first real backup of them – just because I felt guilty about not having a plan already in place.  Which is why I’m writing this post.  I’m having a hard time completely working through that plan.  I’m getting stuck at the part of “Do I keep ALL of the pictures?”  Part of me says “Yes.”, and the other parts keeps asking “Why?”.

The other part of the workflow problem, which can be linked into backups in a way, is where to I house my images when I put them on the web.  I mean I do have my own webserver!  It seems like I should be able to come up with some open source software that will let me add a “Flickr-like” section to my wbesite.  But nothing that I have tried has made me happy yet.  (I’ve only been looking at WordPress plugins so far.) 

I know I hear people screaming already: “Gallery!!!”

But Gallery has never really impressed me.  Yeah, I can upload pictures and have people look at them, but there’s a crudeness to Gallery that I simply can’t get over.  Not being a very apt web dude, I can’t seem to blend it into my blog seamlessly enough for people not to notice.  I really wish there were more apps like Gallery so I had more of a choice.

I guess for now, I’ll simply use the external hard drive for backups and Flickr for presentation.  But I know there has to be more elegant solutions for both issues.