Aperture is an amazing post-processing software, that keeps track of all my images and helps me quickly organize and get them ready to send out into the world. But I do believe it has also been very influential in helping me come up with new directions for my work and ultimately makes me a better photographer.

I’ve talked about this before, but repeatedly in my photographic career, the more I shoot the more I begin to connect the dots between my work.

Whether I’m in Africa or New York or here at MacWorld, the more I shoot, the more I start to see similarities between the types of images I’m making, which often leads to bigger projects. Sometimes it’s an aesthetic connection, often it’s similar subject matter.

Aperture’s ability to create as many albums as I like, without adding taking up additional storage space, makes this possible.

Often in photography projects, the idea is most everything. Once I find the hook for a specific collection of images, it’s much easier to focus my attention on adding to that collection.

For instance, from my recent trip to Rwanda, I ended up visiting a few of the many memorials scattered throughout this small nation, still haunted by the Geonicide.

Though I didn’t start out to document the memorials there, I was interested in visiting them and as a photographer, I would take pictures.

After importing images from several memorials visited during two trips to Rwanda, I created an album in Aperture called "Rwanda Memorials", transfering my selects into this album. I wanted to share the work in slideshow form, and was able to edit the selection easily in Aperture.

I have also photographed at Auschwitz as well as New York City just after 9/11. The idea of documenting memorials around the world is something that ocurred to me after creating further albums in Aperture for both these categories. I can then create a generic “Memorial” album where I can combine all three sets of pictures, and experiment with different combinations to see just how they might work together and how I might continue to pursue this idea.

Have you experienced similar inspiration using albums in Aperture?