At the end of last week’s post, I mentioned that I would be talking this week about my efforts to organize and archive my collection of original film masters. Well, since then I ended up writing an introduction to that effort over at AUPN. So, go read it and come right back!

Okay, well if you didn’t feel like jumping over to AUPN I will give you the run down. I decided to take advantage of a fairly new app called Bento to handle the database side of things. So far it has been working out great. Now that I have the database all set up, I am at the point where I need to do the work and start cataloging everything. It’s going to take some time, but I think it will be worth it in the end, and of course it sets up a pretty good system for me to use into the future.

During this process I have noticed a couple of interesting things that translate over to the digital world and to Aperture. The most interesting of them has to be what I have labeled, “The Archivalist.” This is a personality trait that I think many people have and that is certainly on the top of my list of things I often think about when shooting and working with my images.

Aperture helps me be “The Archivalist” in many ways. It keeps my workflow flowing in a way that I can rest assured that my original masters won’t get harmed, altered, or accidentally deleted. This is a good thing. If only the camera manufacturers would buy into an open RAW format.

With Bento and my little film boxes, I am starting to see the forest through the trees. It’s also great fun to go back through all of my old work and see how I have progressed as a photographer over the years.

I do this with Aperture all the time. Especially now with the “All Projects” view which I love so much. I can easily scroll through my digital diary of photos from end to end. Sort of like that movie “Final Cut” with Robin Williams where he scrolls through the memories of a an entire lifetime in just a few minutes.

Well, I was browsing the web yesterday and found a few posts on a few of my favorite blogs all leading to the same place. Along the theme of “The Archivalist” I also tend to think of myself as “The Documentarian” and, part of that role is of course documenting my own life.

But this guy did one better. Jamie Livingston was a regular guy who lived a regular but shortened life. All along the way, for the last 20 years of his life, he took a single Polaroid photo every single day. That’s well over 6000 Polaroids. The images were recently discovered and put on display. It’s hard to describe in words how this makes me feel, or what this really means, so go and check it out for yourself.

Anyway, I am deep into my archiving project, but having a great time working through my photos. Two years ago at the TED conference there was a good deal of talk about this thing called the “collective memory.” So, once I get stuff organized, archived, and protected from the elements, I will do my best to add to that collective memory by uploading some of my life to flickr.com.

By the way, all this film is making me want to go out and shoot some! In the process of digging through boxes and boxes of processed begatives, I found an old Holga and a few rolls of TMax 120. Hmmm, could be fun!