[with respect and gratitude to Virginia Woolf]

I spend hours each day in one room of our house. Many years ago, this room was our bedroom. Then, it was an office we shared (briefly), before it became my office / our guest room (with foldout couch). During a remodel, it became our bedroom again. Now, I think of it as our tv room, given most vestiges of my office have gone. Though it is “our” room, I’ve felt comfortable outfitting it unilaterally. Let’s have a look, shall we?

Start with the corner that used to have a stand-up desk I built. Now, it’s a nook. I’ve documented the wall of photos elsewhere. The chair was Merri’s mom’s. Mer spent many hours there in her youth; I commandeered it during visits to her mom’s house. On the floor in front of the chair is a futon — a terrific place for a nap. You might note the wall of photos is white; the wall with the window is light green; those colors meet again in the opposite corner. (Long ago, that white wall was Taos turquoise — so vibrant people stepped back when they saw it.) 

Passing the north window with the Japanese-style paper shade featuring cranes, the next corner used to hold a sit-down desk I built. Now, it’s stuffed with exercise gear, a part of my effort to keep the grave at bay. 

Pass the double-wide east window to the recliner-couch, a second-hand revelation. Next to the bookcase is a wooden crate I stole from my college roommate (he knew about it). Fitting, since theft would surely be an honor code at UVa (diploma normally hidden by the door).

And the tv, which most often is a very large computer monitor connected to a tower in the nook.

I’ve glided past some art. Least obvious is an African mask that holds my wireless headphones. I love loud music while I work out. This leaves 4 bird images. The red cardinal I bought for my Mom a lifetime ago. The cardinal was her spirit animal (her daemon). Nearest it is a fabric peacock with chrysanthemum. This was also hers, possibly before my birth; she painted the frame. Most recently, I’ve added the gorgeous cerulean warbler (above the tv) and the great great horned owl (behind some gear). I bought them as indulgences at the start of the new normal, the age of staying home. (Both are by Linda Apple, who came to me via my friend AE.) 

Time spent in this room would better expose my few knickknacks: silver baby cups, cobra candlesticks (Dad’s), a Himalayan salt lamp. There is Teddy, my bear who rode on Mom’s coffin to the graveyard, the monkey, my beanie babies (cardinal & wolf), two giant mugs (“Think BIG” says one from Mom), the books. The double-door closet (below) is STUFFED with a hodgepodge of electronics & photography gear, plus a few clothes. 

Now, you have an insight into my daily life: hours on that couch, looking at that tv (mostly on the Web, reviewing photos, or journaling). Plus, 30-60 minutes most days working out to a mix of oldies and less-so. Mer and I watch comedies in the evening; I watch sci fi now and then. The dogs come and go as they please. (We got the larger couch to accommodate us four.) Life is good. (We are lucky.)

[no apologies to Rod Stewart]

These pictures span 40 years of my life, up until 25 years ago. Most have been languishing in the garage for ages. I like uncluttered walls for the most part, despite what you see here, which is one reason it took me most of a year to put these up, tucked in a corner of a room, half-hidden by a bookcase. 

Start with the three photos of me as a baby (well, 5 pictures. if you count each in the triptych).

In the upper-right (or center) are my Mom and Dad in college. (Damn, he had great hair. I more resemble my bald-pated maternal grandfather in that regard.)

Farthest left, as they would like it, are my brother, Dan, and his wife, Sharon, after tennis 37 years ago). Below them, my sister, Elizabeth and her two daughters, JoanE and Julianne (look closely).

Below my parents, central to my second life, are The Droogs. “My friends — I made them myself.” Above: we are teens by the Dart in front of Pine Street, all part of the mythology. That photo was taken by Michal Patten. Below: nearly 10 years later, behind Preston Road. Photo by Merri Rudd. 

In the lower left, a photo I took of the market in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The artwork on the right is a drawing by Steve O’Neill (“The Easter Egg Hunt,” above, with a photobomb) and a painting by Jas Mullany (“Iconographic Mark” at 40, foreshadowing 47). 

People who are hugely important to me are missing here only because I don’t have large prints of them (the organizing principle of this display). They (you) abound in photo albums and thousands of digital photos I see every day. So many stories.  

This year, I’m going through my archive to organize photos. I have arrived at this process:

• Moving / reorganizing into folders
• Rating (1 to 5 stars; 0=delete)
• Deleting unrated photos
• Tagging
• Editing

I continue to use Microsoft Photo Gallery because there is no better tool that combines organizing and editing. (I try other tools now and then to confirm this.) Sadly, Photo Gallery was discontinued years ago; I cling to my setup program. Although I have jumped around, I’m settling in to a chronological approach.

Letting Photo Gallery count All Photos and Videos, I had over 100K files when I started. Yes, 100,000+ photos requiring more than 300 GB of storage. Over a month or two, I’ve already rated and deleted from the years 2000 through 2005, leaving about 5K photos from those years (98K total).

I’ve changed my organization over the years, in particular how I name folders. I now prefer to have photos organize by the year and month taken (rarely, the full date). I choose names that easily sort alphanumerically; 2020-01, not 01-2020, for example. When warranted, I include an event name. For example: “2020-05 mjh’s 65th bday” would sort after “2020-05” in the 2020 folder. I generally no longer change filenames, which are easiest to leave to the camera (a change from the first few years).

As I process the archive, I’m moving older photos into this structure, which I have been more consistent with for some years. Way back, I had folders like “Flowers,” instead of taking advantage of tags. All of the files might be named “Colorado” followed by a number. The new order pleases me more.

It’s fitting that this is my first photo from 7/5/1985, the extended Hinton clan on the front porch of the family home outside of Clarksville, Tennessee. Ironically, this isn’t my photo. Merri Rudd took this and others in my archive. [I should say more of the reunion 35 years ago, in a separate write-up.]

I’m puzzled by this being the first photo because there were no digital cameras then. I must have scanned this, then edited the file date and GPS info. Granted, I have scans of even older photos. In most cases, I have not bothered to alter the file date.

My first digital camera was an OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA (as it helpfully wrote as the comment for every photo I took), which I bought at Costco in anticipation of my 47th birthday in 2002. [Camera ID was C-1ZD-150Z, though that changed later.] The first digital photos I took (and still have) were at UNM Continuing Education, of all places. Why wasn’t my first photo of Merri or Lucky Dog? Those firsts came on a camping trip 3/29-31/02 in the San Mateo Mountains. A month later, I took that camera to Chaco for the first of thousands of photos with numerous cameras over the years. Organizing just the Chaco photos is a future project in its own right.

Recall that after organizing into folders, if necessary, I’m then rating the unrated. I’ve been better about rating these past few years, so there should be fewer unrated files as I move on. After I’ve rated or deleted all, I’ll work on tags. (I do a little of that as I go.)

This will likely take more than another month or two but I could be done before the end of the year.