Week 9: Getting Organized and Heading South
Getting Organized and Heading South
PHOTO JOURNAL 2026
James Bradley
3/5/20264 min read
Getting Organized and Heading South
Week 9: Getting Organized and Heading South
It's now March and I am starting to think harder about my posting schedule, image organization, and how and where to catalog my photos from the road.
What I do not fully understand is that I am also signing up for a self guided file management seminar (which I have zero clue about), posting schedules, folder systems, duplicate checks, and the occasional calendar-based mental breakdown. The confusion of aging is real! I have photos from home, photos from the road, phone shots, camera shots, drone shots, wildlife, landscapes, family moments, weird urban scenes, and a few images that probably only made sense to me at the time, if at all. I would love to say that was part of some deep artistic statement about memory, time, and repetition, but no. It was mostly me needing a better system. Organizing sucks. There, I said it!
At this point, I am starting to see the need for a better posting schedule. Well, maybe not better, just more streamlined. When I first started, I was mostly just taking photos and throwing them out there as I went. That works for a little while, but once the weeks start stacking up, the photos have start piling up right along with them. Trust me I am taking a ton of photos. I hear stories of the days of film cameras where you only had access to what you had available to shoot on film and have developed. Hell, I remember those days somewhat. When I was in the Army stationed in California, I had an old Chinon CP7M. I remember taking the film to the store to get it developed so I could collect the photos in an album for us to look at years down the road. Yep, I’m that old.
The old school style of photography is such a sharp contrast to what we have today with the advent of DSLR and mirrorless cameras. With the new camera style I have access to a memory card that is in the body of the camera and I can literally take thousands of photos, keep the ones I want, and toss the rest and as such, I seriously had to start thinking about dates, folders, edits, social media posts, and eventually how all of this would fit into a possible blog sometime in the not so distant future. In other words, the photography challenge had officially created paperwork. Wonderful.
I need a better system. That is part of the process too. Not every lesson comes from camera settings. Some of them come from trying to find the right photo in a pile of files and realizing I may have created a monster, no I have definitely created a monster and it's all cute and cuddly like a teddy bear, puppy, or kitten…or not!
I have to get serious about setting up folders by week and dropping the photos into them ahead of time, so all I have to do is edit them and drop them into the challenge when I am ready. Crazy stuff huh, I know. Folders. Who'd thunk? I mean my process is basically a digital junk drawer full of finished edits, possible edits, maybe, rejects, “did I already post this?” images, and whatever else got dragged along for the ride, and oh my hell there were a ton that just got drug along at this point. The photo challenge has officially created paperwork, and apparently paperwork follows you even when you are trying to be creative. As much as I hate paperwork, I will continue to do it. All in the name of organization and photo education.
This week had a good mix of pics again. The old, snarled tree is amongst the first of my New Mexico images, and it feels like the beginning of another part of the journey. Up to this point, a lot of the challenge has been built around home, local spots, and whatever I can find nearby. New Mexico (where I spend a lot of time for work) is opening the door to differences in landscapes, light, textures, and a whole lot more, like the old gnarled tree photo, unlike at home where I have a shot of a bird on a branch, bare trees against the sky, that backroad scene I keep coming back to, a wide open landscape, broken ice along the water, and Susan out shooting, which feels like it belongs in its own little story.
My favorite photo this week is probably the old snarled tree. I like the shape of it, the mood of it, and the way it feels different from the photos I had been taking before. It feels like the start of a new setting. New Mexico has become a good place for me to practice.
The bird photo, a Black Merlin, is another one I like. It is simple, clean, and the blue sky helps the subject stand out. I was still learning how hard wildlife photography can be, but shots like that made me want to keep trying.
My least favorite is...the Silo, it has to be the silo. Why? Because it is just boring. I think I took it just for content. It kind of defeats the purpose of me shooting in a way.
So, Week 9 is a wrap. I am still learning the camera, still learning editing, and now apparently learning file management whether I want to or not. The challenge is growing, the photo pile is growing, and I am starting to understand that if I want to keep this going, I need a system. Imagine that, me needing organization. Who saw that coming?
I would love to get some feedback from you all about the photography learning process. Please feel free to shoot me an email through my contact page.
Thanks for reading!
