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on artists owning the means of their production, p1
2 years ago
picasa trauma
remember picasa? it was free-as-in-beer photo organizing software that google acquired in the early aughts, and discontinued about a decade later because it wasn't super profitable. when i was just getting into photography, i used it extensively to organize, sort, and crop my growing photo and reference collection. when it was forcibly removed from my art toolbox, i was kind of devastated--i had come to rely on it as a crucial part of my process, and kind of gave up on photography when it went away; my photos folder went from a tightly-tagged organization to a few albums from 2010, and the rest in some variation of ~/photos/unsorted. i actually stopped taking more, because the loss was traumatic, and i didn't have the emotional energy or tools to recreate my effort.
digikam and applied marxism
in the decade since, i've become a professional artist, and accumulated a ton of reference, portfolio, and training images that i use in my practice... but i still stored them in the same disorganized way. during the pandemic, i decided to start investing in my digital tools, but i was pretty stumped how to deal with photos. an acquaintance of mine turned me on to an open format personal wiki software (which i'll cover in part 2), and it got me to thinking about what i wanted from my digital tools, namely:
1. longevity; allowing my needs and schedule to dictate the use of my tools--no more losing access due to a corporate profit decision.
2. ownership; the freedom to manipulate my data on my terms, and not be trapped within a proprietary walled garden of incompatibility.
3. no sudden downtime; i wanted a tool i could use and maintain for as long i wanted, that wouldn't break due to an offline license server.
4. attentional freedom; not having to rely on services that utilize intrusive ads which wreck my adhd brain.
5. ease of use
after a great deal of searching, i settled on an open source program called digikam. it wasn't the most user-friendly solution, nor was it simple to set up, but it meets 80% of my criteria and has been really useful as an art tool--i use it to tag my photos, sort and search by tags, non-destructively crop and edit, find duplicates, and of course, browse my porn by kink. digikam reads and writes windows tag metadata properly, saves my searches, i can throw it on linux, and its only cost is time and effort.
process
non-hierarchical photo organization by tag is enormously helpful to my verbose creation process. when i'm developing a concept for a project, i usually start by browsing my inspirational tags by material. after i nail down the concept, i make a mood board using images i tag with, like, "_project name x", and then copy all those pieces into my project folder. after creation, i can quickly find my process and portfolio images by tag, which is especially useful when preparing call for artist submissions and brand advertising on social media.
closing
if you want to try out digikam yourself, here's some links:
- https://digikam.org
- https://portableapps.com/node/28757
remember picasa? it was free-as-in-beer photo organizing software that google acquired in the early aughts, and discontinued about a decade later because it wasn't super profitable. when i was just getting into photography, i used it extensively to organize, sort, and crop my growing photo and reference collection. when it was forcibly removed from my art toolbox, i was kind of devastated--i had come to rely on it as a crucial part of my process, and kind of gave up on photography when it went away; my photos folder went from a tightly-tagged organization to a few albums from 2010, and the rest in some variation of ~/photos/unsorted. i actually stopped taking more, because the loss was traumatic, and i didn't have the emotional energy or tools to recreate my effort.
digikam and applied marxism
in the decade since, i've become a professional artist, and accumulated a ton of reference, portfolio, and training images that i use in my practice... but i still stored them in the same disorganized way. during the pandemic, i decided to start investing in my digital tools, but i was pretty stumped how to deal with photos. an acquaintance of mine turned me on to an open format personal wiki software (which i'll cover in part 2), and it got me to thinking about what i wanted from my digital tools, namely:
1. longevity; allowing my needs and schedule to dictate the use of my tools--no more losing access due to a corporate profit decision.
2. ownership; the freedom to manipulate my data on my terms, and not be trapped within a proprietary walled garden of incompatibility.
3. no sudden downtime; i wanted a tool i could use and maintain for as long i wanted, that wouldn't break due to an offline license server.
4. attentional freedom; not having to rely on services that utilize intrusive ads which wreck my adhd brain.
5. ease of use
after a great deal of searching, i settled on an open source program called digikam. it wasn't the most user-friendly solution, nor was it simple to set up, but it meets 80% of my criteria and has been really useful as an art tool--i use it to tag my photos, sort and search by tags, non-destructively crop and edit, find duplicates, and of course, browse my porn by kink. digikam reads and writes windows tag metadata properly, saves my searches, i can throw it on linux, and its only cost is time and effort.
process
non-hierarchical photo organization by tag is enormously helpful to my verbose creation process. when i'm developing a concept for a project, i usually start by browsing my inspirational tags by material. after i nail down the concept, i make a mood board using images i tag with, like, "_project name x", and then copy all those pieces into my project folder. after creation, i can quickly find my process and portfolio images by tag, which is especially useful when preparing call for artist submissions and brand advertising on social media.
closing
if you want to try out digikam yourself, here's some links:
- https://digikam.org
- https://portableapps.com/node/28757
adjectivecat
~adjectivecat
OP
forgot to upload this the other day lol
