Index Prints

[...This follows on the previous post. —Ed.]

 

Here's a simple way to make sense of a sprawling, less-than-perfectly organized ongoing archive of photographs of the sort most of us have—and eventually help preserve your pictures at the same time.

First, buy three boxes.

You might need more than one set, but this will get the point across.

You really don't need anything fancier than this archival drop-front metal-edge box. But if you want to spend more, naturally you can.

Then, whenever you get a photograph that you think is unusually good, regardless of what you took it with (phone, carry-along camera, big rig) and regardless of the reason you think it might be worth preserving (your best artwork, documentary record, something you want to remember, good family snapshot), just make a small print of it on a standard size of paper that fits the box. Doesn't matter whether you make the print yourself or whether you have it made. Mix and match if need be. All you really need is a good representation of the picture.

So why three boxes? So you can use the 1-2-3 editing method. I've written about this before. Basically, a 1 is a 100% hit, a picture you love or consider your best. A 2 is an "almost" or "not sure yet." A 3 is something decent or interesting that maybe you liked at first that didn't quite make the cut, but that you still respect enough to keep, or a provisional failure that you can learn from or think you can build on in the future.

It's both fun and critically important to consider these categories to be dynamic. Every now and then, sift through your no. 1 box and consider if any of the pictures there have lost a little of their luster and need to be demoted to a 2. Do the same thing with the middle set and move prints up or down as you feel the urge. Look through the 3 box occasionally and see if anything's grown on you, or if anything suggests ideas for trying again.

Visual intelligence
This has all sorts of advantages for your photography...it can suggest future projects, directions, or subjects, or make you decide to stop shooting something you previously pursued; it can help you understand how your own pictures work; it can help you understand how your taste is growing and changing; it can reveal to you how your own pictures change with time. Visual intelligence is not quite the same thing as thinking. Actually looking at your pictures helps you understand things you couldn't otherwise.

It's also a rewarding way of simply revisiting and enjoying your own work from time to time.

I like the idea of having one nicer box for the best pictures and cheaper ones for the 2s and 3s. But make sure they all accommodate the same size paper so you can sift and sort and move prints from box to box easily.

Customize to suit
Of course, if you have enough threads in your work, you can have different sets of boxes...one for the main stream of your serious work and one for ephemera, for example; one for pro work and one for personal; one for "fine printing" prospects and one for when you were just playin' around (I do a lot of playing around!); one for yourself and one to show friends and family. It's very flexible. You decide. Just make it make sense to you.

And it's a natural method of "picture preservation" to boot. If you label the no. 1 box "John Doe's Best Photographs 2000–2010," or "Grandfather Doe's Favorite Family Pictures," or "J. Doe Published Work," and every print has notations on it, it would take a hard-hearted family indeed to toss that box into the dumpster when you eventually kick off this coil! (Which I hope happens when you're a hundred and twelve, lest this sound macabre.) Rather, your family—even the not-yet-born members—could well be permanently grateful for the work you did to help them understand and identify the pictures that mattered to you...and the people and places in them.

Does this sound like a lot of work? Well then it does, but it's the sort of work artists and photographers do.

And here's a nice idea to help you with your labeling: imagine your boxes and pictures being discovered by a not-yet-born grandchild or great-grandchild. Help your descendant out. Let him or her know what's in the box and why they mattered, and ditto for each picture. Don't make assumptions that anything is self-evident. Just because everyone in the family now knows it's Uncle Joe, don't assume the person discovering the box in the future will. 

Finally, maybe consider these "index prints" to be merely a visually-accessible catalog of sorts. It's not necessary to think of them as the final form of any of the work. Use them as workprints for sequencing exhibits or books, or as rough guide prints for future fine printing at larger sizes, or for showing to other photographers to get their reaction, or for combining into diptychs, or to help you do whatever you want to do with them. There's no reason to stop being creative with the pictures just because they're already "in the box."

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Comments

[Ned Bunnell]

One sign of old age is repeating what you say:

https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2018/07/recommended-portfolio-boxes.html

Since this was less than a year ago, Mike, how are you doing with archiving all your prints? Putting my sarcasm aside, that really is the issue. It takes a lot of time to organize your photos. I’m guessing most of us start it in earnest but then other things become a higher priority.

[Rob Campbell]

Mike, as many freelance workers ultimately discover, you do more work than anyone with a regular job, and it seldom earns you as much. And I'm glad that you do that labour because I enjoy reading your stuff.

I suppose the message is this: what's fun when you're young and capable and quite convinced of invincibility turns around and bites your ass when you are old and suddenly realise you have to watch those few pennies that still survive.

Adding to your daily load the pressures of the new ideas you have proposed could kill anyone not made of steel. Let ego remain in its place, which it has naturally worked out all by itself, and accept that those who become famous in their lifetime sometimes deserve that fame and very often do not; insofar as post-lifetime fame, why would you give a damn? If there is a hereafter, speaking for my own set of priorities, better that it gives me back my wife in that hereafter than that I invisibly get to see some snaps of mine in a gallery or in a billionaires safe!

If one's offspring show little present interest in sharing the bounty of one's photographic journey, why on Earth are they going to think differently when there is less pressure on them even to nod and smile at one's quaint hobby? Let them be free of such imposed responsibilities. And if there be more than one offspring, then the complications of who gets what are even more stressful long before you shed your mortal coil. And some think the only child has problems or is one?

I guess it's all about natural selection, in the end, and what survives does so because of many factors over which the individual has little control, and gathering even more baggage in life and eventually dumping it on somebody else is hardly a loving thing to do; if you want to leave them something worthwhile, let it be the memory of a good parent, and a nice pile of spending power! Guess I might be able to score 50% - if I'm lucky!

:-)

[David Zivic]

I like the 3 box system. Unfortunately all 3 boxes might be #3's......
I am currently using the boxes that the paper came with the paper with 25 sheets each.

[Speed]

I was looking for Mike's post from last year that caused me to start printing. It was actually two …

Wednesday Open Mike: My Printing Problem
https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2018/07/wednesday-open-mike-my-printing-problem.html

The Economics of DIY Printing
Guest post by Mark McCormick-Goodhart
https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2018/07/the-economics-of-diy-printing.html

Both are excellent and worth reading or re-reading.

I recommend clicking on "Printers and Printing" in the right hand column and spending some time reading or re-reading some of the posts. Mike's thoughts and "featured comments" from experienced printers and photographers in the resulting discussions are excellent.

And as often happens I just ordered two storage boxes and 480 sheets of archival tissue paper.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

I certainly agree with buying good archival boxes to store your prints! But I do not agree with physically sorting your prints according to your good/better/best assessment. It’s too whimsical and will certainly shoft over time. Plus, it’s downright un-maintainable in any practical sense.

My alternates suggestion

Organize your prints first by SIZE then by DATE. Establish and rigorously maintain a consistent and logical image naming protocol. Label your prints as you make and file them.

Use the ultra-powerful features of Lightroom to manage your catalog(s). (Or choose another digital asset manager you might prefer.). This enables you to reorganize, rate, slice and dice your images however much or often as you need without requiring physical re-org of prints. You should be able to lay your hands on any referenced print in 60 seconds. (Be sure to replace it properly!)

C’mon, it’s the 21st. Learn to use dem tools!

[Bill Tyler]

I'd suggest also writing something on the print, maybe on the back, indicating the source - file name if it originated digitally. That way when you want to reprint something, you won't have to search for hours finding the file or negative.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Do be sure to write the file ID on the back! Otherwise you (or your heirs) will find themselves with this box of nice, small, prints, and no easy way to find the full-size file they derive from!

[hugh crawford]

I'm reevaluating my print storage after a run-in with rodents, who really like the taste of traditional silver gelatin prints or anything made of paper. ( they enjoy the taste of Speed Graphics too )

If you want to go all out Tutankhamun* for your future Howard Carter, may I suggest something like this https://www.amazon.com/First-Alert-3050F-Hanging-Folder/dp/B000MPPVWK or this https://www.amazon.com/MMF-Industries-Fire-Retardant-Security-221615103/dp/B00006ICA9

Vermin proof , looks important , won't get thrown out with all the other cardboard boxes.

* I'm more that three times as old as King Tut when he died. If that doesn't make you feel old I don't know what will.

[Andrea B.]

I also add some thin archival paper between each print so that when I pick up one to look at it or to show it, there is less chance of scratching or snagging the next print down.

[Chris C]

Perhaps add a USB stick of each of the image files to the box too.