Pioneer Spirit

The Digital Shoebox: How to Organize, Find, and Share Your Photos is an invalu­able guide to managing—and showcasing—your photo collection.

The intro­duc­tion of this book is sub­titled ‘This Guide Will Make Things Simple’, and it does exactly that—masterfully. Through a com­bin­a­tion of beau­ti­fully clear advice, won­derful anec­dotes, and fant­astic illus­tra­tions, Sarah Bay Wil­liams takes the reader on an enthralling journey through the often daunting world of digital asset man­age­ment (DAM). Explan­a­tions are simple and easy to follow, but thank­fully, never over sim­pli­fied. This writing style res­ults in the most approach­able primer avail­able on the prin­ciples of DAM.

This book is obvi­ously written for those of us yet to begin taking con­trol of our pho­to­graphy col­lec­tions, and so whilst various spe­cial­ised tools are dis­cussed, the emphasis is firmly upon get­ting the max­imum benefit out of the applic­a­tions already installed on your com­puter (both Mac and PC solu­tions are dis­cussed in detail).

For a book devoted to a poten­tially dry and tech­nical sub­ject, this guide is extraordin­arily reader–friendly, and I would have no hes­it­a­tion recom­mending it to even the most computer–phobic photographers.

I have read Peter Krogh’s The DAM Book: Digital Asset Man­age­ment for Pho­to­graphers (which I also recommend—after you have read this) and there­fore approached The Digital Shoebox assuming that there would be very little of value for me within its pages. I have been abso­lutely delighted with it. At 150 pages, it is con­cise enough to be read in one siting, and you’ll def­in­itely want to—it’s that good. But, the fact that it’s a rel­at­ively slim volume (in com­par­ison with most other com­puter books) shouldn’t put you off; everything you need to know, to bring order from chaos, is within its pages.

Sarah Bay Wil­liams honed her system whilst working as the com­mu­nic­a­tions pho­to­graphy coordin­ator for the Academy of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences, main­taining an archive of hun­dreds of thou­sands of digital pho­to­graphs. It is also obvious from the text that she is an avid pho­to­grapher in her spare time. As you read (and follow) her sug­ges­tions, bringing order to your own image col­lec­tion, it is reas­suring to know that—for all of its simplicity—this system was forged in such unfor­giving pro­fes­sional cir­cum­stances. It’s a system that you can trust to look after you.

The theme run­ning through The Digital Shoebox is that of enjoying (and show­casing) your image col­lec­tion; two chapters are devoted to sharing your pho­to­graphs with the world at large—and con­tain some fant­astic (and inspiring) advice.

Sarah Bay Wil­liams has cre­ated what amounts to a gift. Not only will this book bring sanity to your image col­lec­tion, it will also give you a sense of excite­ment; and the tools to enjoy your images as never before.

This post is tagged Digital Asset Management, Reviews