http://jsoppenheim.com/

I embarked on a rebuild of the studio’s main computer last month, and now with momma and all of her attached children happily sucking down electricity, I’ve had to approach recovering from backups all the data — business administrative, personal, photographic — accumulated since the initial build in 2007.

In the “digital imaging” arena, revisiting some 20,000 files (five-to-one shooting; copies in various formats; ratings from can’t-toss-it-now-but want-to to “Pretty Good!”) makes for a bit of a headache.

Add to that headache that the bulk of the digitized collection was in a single directory on the way to frying my old C: drive (yeah, that happened); and on the return, there are now a dozen separate annual directories plus some odd collections.  My goal is to get the “Wall Worthy” into DNG and TIFF collections.

Eventually.

No matter the art or mode, much aesthetic and business success relates to the artist’s ability to explore themes and produce projects.  Be that as it may, right now “it’s hard drainin’ the swamp when you’re up to your ass in alligators!”

It’s not quite that bad, but there’s a lot to deal with right now — in the box and outside of it.

Snapping off a pretty picture now and then doth not a career make.

For the photojournalists, winning a Pulitzer may “make” a career (or name), but the value of the “one-off manufacture” is notoriety only: all who or have or have left something to look at, from Doisneau to Salgado, have produced a lot on their way to becoming their own brand.

I’d like to catch up but it may be late in the day . . . . although I think there’s some light left in it too.

I don’t know if I have a career or have had one or am having one — hard to tell, all that — but I have made an awful lot of pretty pictures and hope to continue making more of them quite (quite!) soon.