Been clearing out my hard drive again.  I don't know what to do with all my early work.  I never look at it and when I looked closer, a lot of it was made for Flickr (a couple of years ago) and at a size that is not conducive to print.  First, I reorganized all my images in folders labeled by category.  IE: people; portraits; landscapes; skies; animals, etc. and WIP (work in process).  They were originally categorized by date (the way the camera uploaded to the computer).  Then I went through some 7000+ pictures and art and deleted EVERYTHING that looked like crap and anything that I felt I would have no need for.   I've already noticed how much easier it is to find an image by categories than by date!  Holy shit.  Just wish I had something to tag my images with, without installing another piece of software.

After everything was nice and neat, I said, "Now what?"  So I've been archiving my older work as contact sheets that I can create with FastStone's Image Viewer.  I can also archive them to .pdf format but not sure of the quality once the images are extracted from the .pdf.  So I decided since most of the images that I'm archiving this way are older works, a contact sheet might be best and I can always create a photo book with them that would look like a proof book.  In this situation, since most of these images are no larger than 1024 x 768, I probably won't be printing them and IF I were to use them as part of a portfolio, these contact sheet styles should be good enough to get my style and imaginative creations across to the viewer.

It's a lot of work cleaning off a hard drive.  I have a 250 gig hard drive and 1/2 of it is full.  The ironic part of it, is that a good part of that 1/2 is Microsoft patches and updates.  You need a hard drive just for that bullshit.  Really ticks me off.  I'm beginning to lean towards a Linux OS.  Been asking questions of some folks that are using Linux and husband and Alex use it.  For me, I would need another background program that is free, that will read some of my graphics software.  Other than that, I could run a dual boot system (upon boot up, computer asks if you want to boot up to Microsoft OS or Linux) or not.  I think I would like to see how the Linux will work before deciding.

So I guess you could say that I'm scaling back on the garbage and getting myself ready for the professional.  But had to start with the hard drive before it gets hairier.  LOL  Would really like a new computer but unless I win the lottery, or win a contest, it's hard to justify as an option on our current budget.

Tomorrow is PhaseOne day.  Need to sign up for the seminar even though a $20+k camera is DEFINITELY outside the budget.

Found a photo-blog website today of photographer Ken Rockwell.  There is a page where he has reviewed (hands on) the soon to be released Nikon DSLR D40 with photo comparisons as well as other models in his 2006 Holiday Camera Guide.  I noticed a link to his gallery and am still going through his photographic travels as I type this.  I am especially fond of his photos from France; the lavender fields and chapels extraordinare`.  Just gorgeous, and I'm sure he's used filters in some of the photos.  He doesn't mention it but if he doesn't then I'd love to be his student!  But I wonder if I can be a good student with my Olympus C3000Z 3.3mp point and shoot?  *sigh*  I've been tempted to pull out the ol' Minolta 202 SLR 35mm, heavy (boat anchor) as it is, and give it another go around for old times sake.

If you're so inclined to take a peek, be prepared to spend a minimum of an hour browsing and reading (brief comments) his travel photos.  This particular photo gave me inspiration today and thought I would share the link.  Gratitude for the Code Talkers.