Clearing the Backlog

(There’s a gallery at the end of this blog post)

I have at least 20,000 images that I’ve shot and shelved. Never touched them. Trips, artsy, nature, street photography, etc.

Today I clicked on the “wrong” folder in Lightroom when I was about to edit a headshot session, saw a pretty sunset, thought “I remember this!” Right there I decided to spend some time looking at images I’ve taken but never edited or even looked. I would need two weeks straight of nothing but photo editing to make a dent in the amount of untouched or briefly touched folders, but today I spent a couple hours starting the process.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I feel like I’ve lost the desire to shoot just for me stuff, and the same answer comes back every time I meditate on it:

“You shoot for hours and then do nothing with the images. You shoot and shelve. You take too many, and the culling process becomes overwhelming. Be more intentional and clear the backlog.”

OK. Let’s get it done. These aren’t anything to write a blog about in and of themselves, but the fact that I am starting to get the backlog dealt with, starting to clear the creative channel, THAT is good thing to write about. Plus each of these spoke to me at least on some level. Peep the wee spider in the flowers.

Creativity is a flowing energy. It can get stopped up if we’re not careful. If we take it for granted. If we let our creative efforts collect dust on a shelf. Even a digital shelf. Clear the channel and get your passion back.