Surprises while working on my Photo Mechanic Plus catalog of photos

by Stanley LearyPhotography

Representative John Lewis with Chick-fil-A Founder S. Truett Cathy during the coin toss for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in 2009. [NIKON D3, Nikon 24-120mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, Mode = Manual, ISO 6400, 1/500, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 90)]

I have been looking through my work using Photo Mechanic Plus trying to find some images for proposals and other things when I came across this image of John Lewis and S. Truett Cathy.

Here is a video I did on using the software for cataloging your photos:

One thing that almost everyone makes a mistake about is metadata with your photos. While I found the images, they were not tagged with John Lewis or S. Truett Cathy’s names in the captions or keywords.

Representative John Lewis with Chick-fil-A Founder S. Truett Cathy during the coin toss for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in 2009. [NIKON D3, Nikon 24-120mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, Mode = Manual, ISO 6400, 1/500, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 24)]

Most of the time I put a general caption with a project when I am ingesting them into my computer using Photo Mechanic Plus.

Representative John Lewis with Chick-fil-A Founder S. Truett Cathy during the coin toss for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in 2009. [NIKON D3, Nikon 24-120mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, Mode = Manual, ISO 6400, 1/500, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 24)]

When ingesting I fill out the metadata fields here in Photo Mechanic Plus.

For this event, I had “Chick-fil-A Bowl Game Day” in the caption field. Not so helpful in finding images.

I probably shot 3,500+ images for that day. I kept 1338. Then I went through and rated the photos from 0 to 5 stars. I only rate 226 photos with 1 ★ or more.

Representative John Lewis delivers the game ball to Chick-fil-A Founder S. Truett Cathy during the Chick-fil-A Bowl in 2009. [NIKON D3, 24.0-120.0 mm f/3.5-5.6, Mode = Manual, ISO 6400, 1/500, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 24)]

This software lets me keep track of images and even if I don’t put all the information in the metadata I can later add that as I did here with these photos.

My wife Dorie enjoyed helping families take their photos in front of the John Lewis mural on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, which is now serving as a gathering site for those mourning his death. [NIKON D5, 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 100, 1/1000, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 14)]

What I love about digital photography is I am going through over 395,000 images that I have put into the database. There are many more than are not in the database that is also on my hard drives. Those would be all the RAW files before I did any editing.

A young lady photographs her family at the John Lewis mural on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta that is now serving as a gathering site for those mourning his death. [NIKON D5, 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 900, 1/1000, ƒ/13, (35mm = 14)]

I take lots of photos when working. Sometimes I enjoy just taking photos of our family.

This is my wife Dorie Griggs in front of the mural. The John Lewis mural on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta is now serving as a gathering site for those mourning his death. [NIKON D5, 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 360, 1/1000, ƒ/9, (35mm = 14)]

Finding these photos of the family is even more rewarding to me.

Digital photography lets me store so many images in such a small space. I remember when photographer Jay Maisel came to town and had his first digital camera. I was talking to him and he pulled out of his pocket a memory card case and was thrilled all this is what he needed rather than a few cases of the film when he traveled.

Going through images by looking through prints, slides and negatives take infinitely more time than today we can do with software like Photo Mechanic Plus.

Young women celebrating being at The John Lewis mural on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta that is now serving as a gathering site for those mourning his death. [NIKON Z 6, 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 1000, 1/1000, ƒ/6.3, (35mm = 200)]