The Problem Is ...

There’s a problem.

Of the 24 photos in the layout above, I only remember making two of them.

I know I made all of them. I just don’t remember the moments.

That made me start looking through a larger archive of Westerville photos from the last 19 years. Then I moved on to 23 years at The AP in Columbus. Then Atlanta and Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando and Gainesville before that. And Grand Forks.

That’s a lot of photos. A very large archive.

When I’m gone, a long time from now, when I’m the oldest living photojournalist, someone may be needed to catalog my archive at the Westerville History Museum. If I can’t remember at a glance having made the photograph, how is anyone else going to know?

I’ve gotten better at a naming convention for my digital archive. Each photo has a name associated with the event plus the date it was made. The metadata includes the time and GPS coordinates if it was on my iPhone.

I stay very busy every day making and editing photographs, writing newsletters, reading, more writing, and considering the state of modern philosophy and social media with little time to go through the collection to catalog it. I’m thinking there needs to be a curator for my work before I’m gone, and I won’t be around to contribute to creating an accurate description of each event.

I need a non-profit to manage my archive. One that could fund itself so the Westerville History Museum wouldn’t be tasked with cataloging a lifetime of making photos and trying to find a way to make them accessible.

The fun part is I’m already working as a non-profit. Just not certified as a 501-(c)(3).