Picture Collection

I didn’t start my collection with Flickr. It started with a few pictures from my earlier years in Washington. When I returned, I bought a new camera and started getting into my sub-amateur photography. My sister joined in. I began selecting my favorite pictures that either of us had taken.

I decided to turn my pictures into a yearly Xmas gift. At first, it was a matter of organizing pictures into folders. As time progressed, I felt that the format was too limiting. I started generating HTML and XML files to help with the navigation.

I was using Excel to help in the creation of the HTML and XML files, but it was still a time-consuming process. Eventually, I started putting my files online. I was still generating the code, but it was in a different form. I uploaded my files to SkyDrive and threw together a personal website.

My website ran into a few problems. Rather than fix my website, I decided that it was time for change. I decided to use a website dedicated to photo sharing.

I didn’t jump to the first site that I could find. I looked at several different options. I could have kept SkyDrive, but their options for photos are severely limited. I could have gone with Picassa, but I expected to hit their cap for free storage. There are also some sites that are strictly paid services. I didn’t want to spend too much money, but I wanted to share my entire collection. Flickr has unlimited space for full size photos for $25 per year. It also has features such as Tags to make up for the loss of custom HTML/XML. That was my choice.

Due to the terms of service, I had to change how I handled my sister’s pictures. I now do most of the preliminary work such as adding tags and descriptions, send the pictures to her, and she posts them to her own account.

Since Flickr isn’t as complicated as my old website, I have freed up some time to make some basic edits. My old collection consisted of original files. By comparison, I try to clean up pictures before uploading to Flickr. Originals are still being posted on SkyDrive, but those are strictly backups. I don’t even make them public.

Unfortunately, the change to Flickr meant that I have to redo my existing collection. I have made newer pictures a priority. This help me ensure that I am not falling behind. When I’m not working on newer pictures, I have been working on my enormous pre-Flickr backlog and other picture-related projects. I suspect that it will take years for me to be completely caught up.