On Wed, February 15, 2012 09:33, Lea Murphy wrote: > Has anyone else tackled such a project going backwards over time while > still continuing to add work to the project on an at-least weekly basis? > > If so, how did you manage it? > > I sit down to my computer with an hour or two to spare for working on it > and find I can't settle in and accomplish anything because I don't see a > clear path through the project. I've never taken on anything quite that big I don't think (they were on film, so I didn't have as accurate a count). I've done at least three projects going through many hundreds of rolls of film covering a decade of time, or one project using 700 rolls of film (and a couple of dozen photographers) that was shot and edited and presented in under a week. I don't think I can pick out the "right" pictures just independently. I have to do it by reference to the alternatives available. That means I need to do the selection before I get too deeply into the processing (to avoid wasting time processing pictures that won't make the final cut). What I have to do to cope with really big piles is make multiple passes. First I just reject the hopeless rejects (that's more an issue with film; I permanently delete those from my digital collection). Then I make a second pass skimming ones that really strike me from a particular collection (shooting session or period of time) Now, if I have enough of that kind of thing, I stop. If I don't have enough, I dig deeper, looking for acceptable photos to use. For your project, it seems to me there are some things you *must* include even if the photo isn't first-rate; but that's your decision, you may feel differently. Sometimes I construct sequences over time -- and need to go back to fill in missing things in the sequence. Sometimes I see I have a lot of similar photos from a period, and have to go through and ruthlessly hack those back to a sane number. (Okay, usually about 2x a sane number; I'm not too good with the machete). So -- what works for me is working like a plane rather than like a table saw; I shave off layers and go back and shave off more layers, rather than hacking off a big chunk in one piece. This seems like it'd be a wonderful gift for the kids; I hope it works out great! -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
