De-Cluttering

     Sorry I'm so late. . . whew - wipes forehead.  I spent yesterday de-cluttering "my room" which had basically  become a catch-all room.  It had to be done, it was looking eerily like a hoarder's room filled with props, half-full storage containers, and cardboard boxes with darkroom equipment.  Now its nice and clean - but the closet is stuffed!
     So, I spent the day cleaning and in the evening I watched this lecture on Harry Callahan (pretty good to learn some trivial stuff if you've got an hour), and I got to thinking about my photographic inventory.  Uh, how I hate it, I mean the work part of it.  But now that I have a large collection that's ever growing I think there's a need to take it more seriously.
      Probably like you, my photos are filed by date.  But as your collection grows wouldn't it be nice to search for them by theme or style.  Here's the plan to ketchup:

1.  Create Folders for Subjects - Landscapes, Portraits, Macro, Food, Flowers, and so on
2.  As you shoot, save by date and filter "choice" shots into Subjects
3.  During free time - start at the beginning and work through your inventory

   My advise to you: start now, or soon anyway.

     There's a point to all of this.  I just don't know what it is, just kidding.  Your photos will look better as a collection.  For example:

     These three photos were taken months apart, but they work great together to show her personality.  However, in order to get them together I had to search in three different folders instead of being able to find them all in one titled "V".  All's well that ends well, but next time it will be easier.  I hope this works for you, and it'll be fun finding some lost gems in your archives.