One of the most challenging aspects of photography is what I like to call "The Mountain". This I discovered when trying to decide what to feature on this website.
It's 2020 now, and we all have digital photos going back years, photo albums are now a thing of the past, and if you're thinking of making a photobook, you'll undoubtedly come across the same problem.
We all have so much digital baggage.
The Mountain of unused digital waste, through which we have to sift to find the gems, the best of the best photographs. This is one of the most off-putting realities as one tries to start a portfolio, or a collection for a photobook.
However, conquering The Mountain sets you up anew, ready for the future projects.
I do this in a number of easy ways.
Always label your photo albums. Place, date/month/year.
Group albums into time periods of your life. For example, I have my folders set 1999-2006 or 2013-2018, which corresponds to my life that I can remember with obvious life events as bookends.
Get yourself a program that can edit photos en mass. (eg. Lightroom)
Use programs to go through each folder and export to best to a separate folder, named 'best of' or 'to share'. This way you only need to sift through 100 photos to find the ones you want, not 500.
Add a quick link straight to your photography folder to your desktop, saving searching through multiple folders to find where all your work is kept.