Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Personal Metadata
January 3rd, 2012 by Babette
It started with a simple idea. Doesn’t it always. In order to carry out this simple idea I needed to review 20 years worth of images which were organized neatly in folders by year/month/event but even digitally that’s a lot of folders. In that moment I decided that since I had finally developed a Lightroom workflow which included tagging all current images, now was time to tag every image I had. Great they’re finally tagged! (No more phone calls, do you remember the name of the person who blah blah blah.)
Of course, like all projects I devise that involve a certain amount of OCD invariably there was scope creep. Boy is it annoying that when I call up all images tagged X they don’t sort nicely, let’s go rename all those old images properly yyyymmdd_xxx_desc. And then finally, the inevitable, am I sure I scanned everything I would want scanned? Better make sure, so I hooked up the scanner and flipped through the old analog albums. Turns out quite a few new scans were made (I’m not totally insane, I’m not going to worry about dust marks until I want to use the image for something.)
I love this project now that it is complete.
So it should have come as no surprise to me to find myself reviewing the iTunes database. My phone upgrade date is less than two weeks away, and all those songs I ripped from CDs without thinking about the cover art are not going to look pretty on the retina display, are they? I didn’t think so. If you need me, I’ll be here cleaning up music.
Resume Word Cloud
October 11th, 2011 by Babette
I’ve been thinking about ways to make my resume stand out in a crowd, and I started thinking about infographics… and I’m still thinking about how to create a relevant infographic for my resume. But as I tinker with that I thought I share my word cloud starting point, which I created using Wordle (Admittedly this is very 2010.)
Algorithm Blues
September 28th, 2011 by Babette
I’ve been thinking about algorithms, the ideas have been bubbling around in my mind for awhile and now with the brouhaha around the Facebook changes it seemed like a good time for my (currently) cranky point of view.
I was annoyed by “top stories” from the moment it launched. And this morning I saw the epitome of why I am annoyed. The top story in my feed was a “friend” I haven’t meaningfully engaged with on FB (or off) who was playing some game I didn’t care about it. Fail. What on earth in the algorithm triggered that into my top stories?
And other algorithms I routinely ponder:
Netflix (Quikster) – in my experience the suggested movies are usually terrible and I have some trouble figuring out the commonality between movie a and movie b.
Amazon – I often use the site as a research tool so the logic behind its suggestions for me can be idiotic. Your mileage may vary.
Goodreads – I’m much more impressed with this one, as it has been better than most although it does suggest I read a book whose description I can’t read because it is in Italian. (Although, I am wondering if this is the Universe telling me to pack in the job search and bum around Italy to become fluent in Italian.)
Cameras – I don’t use the preset settings without also performing manual overrides (i.e. shutter priority while using exposure compensation and manually selecting the ISO.) Oh, and I shoot raw files so that I can develop my images as I see them not how the camera’s algorithm sees.
I’m not sure what the answer is and I’d like the coders to keep trying to match up my tastes, it certainly beats “frictionless” sharing which is a whole lot of noise not serendipitous discovery.
It’s Like Shopping
September 15th, 2011 by Babette
The coffee has been ground, brewed and poured. I am sitting in front of the computer scanning the job listings. Each one offers the promise of possibility for what I do next. As I start to write my cover letters it occurs to me that I wish this kind of shopping was more fun.
Let’s go downtown for one of my favorite types of shopping, clothes. As I read each job description I imagine myself as the person in the role. It really is a bit like trying on clothes. Reading the details on this one I feel like I’m wearing a fancy dress, the next is a nice tank top which would look great with jeans, and then lastly this one is more like surf wear.
If I start the process for each listing by thinking of it as a fresh new look I find that I am also keeping myself optimistic. And as I imagine each role fully if I find that I really can’t see myself wearing it, well I know I need to move on to the next listing.
I guess taking this analogy to the next level, the interview is going into the dressing room to try stuff on in front of the big three paneled mirror.
•In this outfit do I look fat or am I over-qualified.
•Do I look like I need a bigger size in this outfit or am I under-qualified.
•I love this outfit can I wear it home or this could be the perfect job for me.
Of course, in this dressing room, the mirror has a starring role and a commanding voice.
Time for Goldilocks over here to get back to writing letters to the right opportunities about why I rock .
All My “Stuff” Is Digital
September 6th, 2011 by Babette
So, when I decided I’d leave town two weeks ago for the hurricane it was really only because I was afraid Rover (my Mini Cooper) was going to drown.
But if I was evacuating shouldn’t I also take the truly important stuff along with me. Yes, now to sort out what is that stuff? My decision that day has stuck with me for its sparseness as I am classic over-packer. (Really, I am, ask anyone who has traveled with me or seen my suitcase in the office.)
So, what additional items did I shlep out of the house that day? It turned out not so much stuff. I took only my Macbook, and the two Tera Bite Drives that contain all the other digitized files. Drive 1) Gen Back Up/Music/Vid and Drive 2) Raw Images (which in addition to the files direct from my camera includes all digital scans of slides, negatives, photos I’ve digitized.) And my passport.
On the one hand, I’m thrilled that I’ve consolidated so easily to such portable media. On the other hand, do I really believe that it’s only the digital stuff that I think is worth saving? I had the digital backup of the deed to my apartment right next to all those U2 bootlegs. And I had the eBooks.
(To be honest, as always I also had more outfits than I’d need and 2 pairs of shoes but that wasn’t because I was saving them from destruction i might have needed to wear them.)
Embracing A New Workflow- starting with naming conventions
May 1st, 2011 by Babette
In January, I (finally) embraced Lightroom. Now that I’ve been working with it for a few months I can’t believe I resisted it for so long. Unsurprisingly, in utilizing a powerful new (to me) tool I found myself rethinking my image workflow. I’m struck by aspects of the old workflow which were rooted in how I handled negatives.
One compelling feature of Lightroom is that it builds a database of the images and metadata you import and create within the program. I am slowly building a database that starts with old family images that predate my birth (which I scanned) and goes up to the images I shot today.
I began exploring digital photography by dipping my toes in the water- I bought a negative/slide scanner and learned how to process images in Viewscan and Photoshop. I would shoot film, bring the canister to the lab and take home a strip of processed negatives which I would painstakingly scan and develop digitally.
I devised a naming convention focused on utilizing the roll number and the frame number. At the time, it seemed very important for me to be able to relate the digital files to the physical negative or slide.
Ten years later, I can’t see why I thought it was so important to make so direct a connection to the “original” physical object. My slides and negatives have always been stored and labeled properly 
making it fairly easy to find the right frame. I can only assume that despite all the effort I put into digitizing I only saw it as a derivative of the film.
Makes me wonder, does anyone in book production have parallel experiences?
Snapshot From The Backlist
March 17th, 2011 by Babette
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
(Taken at Grograns, South Williams Street, Dublin)
