Special Event Videography - Digital Memories or Techno-Ubbish

As I was growing up my mother dutifully kept every picture, drawing, certificate and piece of paper that marked the every day milestones of my life. We called her meticulous storage system the 'white suitcase' and it wasn't so much a repository for memories as a guilt free bin for all the crud that didn't make the cut to the fridge.

These days we all have our 'white suitcase' and we commonly term it 'my inexhaustible hard drive'. We squirrel away odds and sods that are never to see the light of the monitor again. Sometimes because we no longer need them and other times because we didn't name them properly and have lost or forgotten about them. Well, even though 120GB is a lot of storage, you can just never have enough memory. Here are a couple of tips to maintain a healthy digital library of all your most precious memories whilst not clogging up your ROM with unnecessary techno-ubbish and digi-arbage.

Be Tidy

When downloading all your digital media, put it all in the one spot. I like to save to a removable hard drive. This is going to make it easy to save my precious photos during a house fire, which is apparently the first thing after the children, and before the dog, that you will reach for.

It is also a place where they will not take up your hard drive memory and can obviously be moved between computers should you wish to upgrade, download to another computer or printer or if you are concerned about loss in the event of a irrebootable computer death.

Naming Conventions

Think of a way to name all your photographs and stick to it. Personally I like to include the date and the event. Knowing this I can always search for a photograph using keywords. It is much easier than trawling through hundreds of photographs all called DSC001 or PstElizas.kisinJudithsHuby 001, …002etc.

Separate Your Media

Put all your different media in similar folders. If you have photographs and video of a party, open a folder called PARTYDATELOCATION and then sub folders, one for photos, one for video and one for blackmail. Once again this will allow for ease of locating. Unless of course you are concerned about forensic police in which case rename the one called blackmail to C.CruzThnx2Eliza.

Discard the Useless

Now we all know that your significant other/darling children/extended family are all beautiful wonderful people but not every photograph or video you take of them is. Discard the media that are not up to scratch. Don't just automatically download everything on the memory stick and forget about it, don't save all that boring footage that you recorded when you put the camera down thinking it was turned off on the bedroom dresser. Check it and erase it. If it shows Eliza snogging her best friends husband save it, if not ditch it and reuse the tape. Streamline your library into only useable, story telling pictures. Think to yourself, what would I ever end up using this photograph for? If you can definitely say you will view it again, perhaps print a hard copy for your office desk photo frame, or drop a copy to Eliza with your banking account details, then it is worth retaining.

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