Information R/evolution

While looking up ways to catalog my ever-growing photograph collection, I stumbled upon this video. Mind you, I wasn't looking for a video, rather I was searching a topic called "Digital Asset Management" or DAM.

As budding-photographers-to-be, we are supposed to implement this protocol when cataloging our photos in order to aid in later photo-retrieval. For example, my photo catalog shows that I've taken 6,500 pictures in the last several months. Today, I need a picture of an oak tree for use in a project. Rather than searching through all those images, I can look up keywords that I have already assigned to each of the pictures. I can look up "tree" or "oak tree" or "forest" or "outdoors" in hopes of finding a picture that would work perfectly for such a project. Of course, I can also search using other metadata, such as Date, or Captions that I may have given the picture, or even by Camera Lens ... but today I'm only concerned about the keywords.

It's a wonderful system of organization, but it requires that you stay on top of your cataloging so that when you need an oak tree (or a child crying, or a red balloon flying out of an open window) you can quickly find it.

The problem that I run into is finding the most efficient and universally-recognized system of cataloging, which is what led me to do a quick search on "DAM."

This movie is not exactly related to my search for efficient keywording, but I found it very dramatic and thought-provoking.