Finding Space for Your Digital Photo Collection - Part 1
WE ARE ALL IN THE REAL ESTATE BUSINESS
There’s nothing very complex about photo management.
It’s all about storage space.
By my count I’ve lived in 14 places. Ten of those being out on my own in the world. And as life does, I’ve collected things along the way. Artifacts or clutter depending on your point of view.
Downsizing and discards help manage the space allocation, but in recent years there’s always been a packed garage or self-storage unit handling the overflow.
Just how it is.
Managing your photo collection is pretty much the same thing, with a digital twist. Anyone who’s moved a few times has all the skills they need to make it work. And with photo collections regularly topping 100k images and a Terabyte of space, your digital photography can put that skill to the test.
There are 5 places that your pictures can live.
On your primary device.
On a device attached to your primary device.
On a device that’s not attached to your primary device.
In “the Cloud.”
In an Ecosystem.
Let’s look at that.
On your device
This is the Holy Grail of photo management. Having all your photos on your device - iPhone, iPad, Mac - in full resolution whenever you want. Your primary home, so to speak, with all your stuff at your fingertips.
On an attached device
This is the external hard drive that’s plugged in or accessible on a network. Almost as handy as On Device but not quite. Slower access speed. Organization tasks. It’s the Garage or Basement Storage of your digital home. You need to put on slippers and a sweater to go there.
On a detached device
Now we’re talking about Self-Storage. This is the Hard Drive in your drawer or fire safe. Maybe an old, little used Mac with pictures you never migrated. Thumb drives, camera SD cards, that proprietary backup stick that looked so nifty on Facebook. Getting to off-line devices takes some effort and photos living here are often forgotten and gathering dust. Detached storage seems to multiply over time. In our digital world you have to get in the car and go get it.
The ‘Cloud’
This is Forever, SmugMug, pCloud. It’s your self-contained country house. Where all your good stuff happens. Yes, there’s an extra mortgage, but it’s worth it. The getaway from day-to-day. You host guests. Lounge around the pool. Spread out.
But you still need to get there. Which is sometimes more convenient than others.
Wi-Fi anyone?
The Ecosystem
This is Apple Photos, Mylio Photos +, Adobe Lightroom, Google Photos, Amazon Photos, and the like. It is the digital equivalent of estate living with a gate house, guest quarters, lodge, pool, theatre, and 6 car garage.
Fully implemented, it’s an interconnected collection of shared content and devices. Pieces come and go. It’s photography collection as lifestyle experience.
The defining element is that the focus is the content, not a device. The ecosystem is driven by making everything available everywhere instead of it actively living in one place. Images are introduced to the ecosystem. Edits and deletions go everywhere, managed and shared by a distributed database. Redundancy. Accessibility. Automation.
Next Steps
That’s it. There are pluses and minuses to each option, but in the end it all comes down to the size of your photo collection and the space you need to store it securely and conveniently at an attractive budget.
So what’s the plan? When you get that “out of space” error message or your device gets wonky and freezes at random, how do you restore your Apple experience until you can upgrade to a better solution?
Stay tuned for Finding Space Part 2
If you are reading 5 Minute Photos in your email I urge you to get the Substack App and enjoy it there instead. I get a ton of email these days and the ones I really want to see can get buried. The Substack App lets you read without the clutter, save posts you really like, make comments and so much more. Or you can find me on your Mac browser at 5minutephotos.substack.com. Either way you can become part of a community of over 1000 others who love creating, organizing, and sharing pictures on their iPhone and in the Apple Photos ecosystem.
