Ritual & Editing
from 169,800 to 137,309: exploring digital clutter
Dear Reader,
Between 2014 and 2016, visiting this tree was an almost daily ritual. It changed with each season as did I.
Over time, we shared all manner of moods and weather, but were both firmly rooted to this place.1
It’s been years since I’ve visited the tree on a regular basis. And this year, a bum knee, which is slowly healing, has demanded I remain on flatter surfaces.
So to connect with it, I’ve been reviewing our relationship, as revealed through images in my Lightroom catalogue.
820 photographs of one tree? For some photographers, that might not seem a lot, especially over a ten year period. But still, over 800?
The more I look at them, the more I feel as if the value of the tree has been diminished. Did this ritual documentation bring me closer to this growing being or has it allowed me to stay at ‘arms length,’ documenting, but not truly connecting with it or myself?
For me, editing is the best way to answer this kind of question. When I look at images in relationship to each other, I am able to see their true meaning both individually and as part of some larger narrative.
Keyword: Balch Hill (3683 images)
Keyword: Tree (818 images, not all this particular one)
Year & Rating: This is where it gets interesting. Which ones really ‘rate’?
Create a “Balch Hill Tree” Collection Set with subcategories, by month.
Extract a favorite from each month for the “Year in Review”. The resulting typology begins to reveal meaning from the former ‘mess.’2
12 Months of The Tree, Balch Hill Photos by Lyn Swett Miller There’s the lovely balance: 6 months with leaves, 6 months without; There’s the glorious shift in spring and fall; And there’s the awareness that even though these images were created over many years, they belong together.
And of these, which ones really call to me?
While that first flush of leaves in May and that glorious burst of color in October are stunning, it is when the tree is its most raw that takes my breath away.
Alone on the hill, it was mine for the moment, a companion when I had felt most alone. Because it is part of a network of community trails and hundreds of people live as close to it as I do, others may feel the same. It is everyones and no ones. Just a tree being a tree.
As part of the
between mid February and the Summer Solstice, I’m making room for my creative self by letting go of ‘stuff.’In fact, I’ve committed to a ritual of editing. For the past fourteen days, I hung out with digital photographs from 2016 and 2017, deleting thousands of duplicate and redundant images. Along the way, I noticed all these Balch Hill trees, realized I missed our regular visits, so decided to dive deeper into that one particular subject. The eight images in this post are the result.3
Are there, in fact, limits to how many digital photographs a person can have or create at any given moment? It feels as if storage capacity just keeps getting bigger and bigger - - from 500k computers forty years ago to this 8 terabyte laptop I currently use - - it seems as if I can just keep taking and downloading as many photographs as I want.4
But do I want? That is the question.
The sheer volume overwhelms and paralyzes. And the environmental impacts of all this electronic clutter is enormous, whether because of the manufacture of more and bigger hard drives or because of the energy necessary to maintain ‘cloud’ storage facilities.5
Which brings me back to my relationship with this tree, the hundreds of images I created of it, and whether or not I still need all of those photographs?
The act of creating images is a necessary part of my life.
The camera focuses my attention and allows me, for a brief moment, to look through the lens and remove all distraction. The ritual of documenting a particular subject over a long period of time offers stability in a turbulent world. The process of working with the images, as I am right now with this tree series, feeds me in unexpected ways.
No wonder I had almost 170,000 images in my Lightroom catalogue a month ago.
Perhaps practicing this editing ritual will bring me back to those analogue days when each image was a physical, precious object, first on film and then on paper.
This typology of the tree in February reminds me of a contact sheet - it is defined, structured and a glorious narrative in and of itself.
Do I need more than this one group? Will my similar sets from other months be more impactful, or is this sufficient?
It turns out, that there is as much joy in letting images go as there is in their creation. Letting all those bits and bytes go free makes room for them and me to breathe. It allows their energy to serve another, or be there for me in the future when I need them again, in a different form for a different image.6
It seems particularly important to go through this process now, as by the end of this year I’ll be living in a new place and will undoubtedly find a new tree, or view, or rock with which to connect.
So this collection is, in its own way, a goodbye story, a way of saying “thank you” to this glorious tree, the rootedness it represents and this body of work that honors the all of it.
Do you have a particular tree or place that makes your heart sing? If so, please share in the comments section below!
As always, thank you for sharing your time and this space with me.
With gratitude for you being you,
Lyn
PS: To hear what happened just before posting, read Footnote #6…
This ‘destination’ tree stands at the top of Balch Hill in Hanover, NH. It is on conservation land that is managed by the Hanover Conservancy, the Town of Hanover and Dartmouth College. I happen to live right across the street from one of the trailheads leading to the summit.
A typology is a set of images made with a common subject or idea created over a period of time. Bernd and Hilla Becher essentially established the idea of typological photography with their work documenting abandoned or obsolete industrial buildings, taking each picture from the same angle, same distance and same focal point. The Metropolitan Museum in New York City recently had an exhibition of their work.
In some ways, this conversation about the tree on Balch Hill, which is a Maple Tree, by the way, can hopefully serve as a case study for me as I continue to unearth all that is hidden in the depth of my Lightroom archive. A month ago I had about 170,000 images. As of now, I have 137,307. A few years ago I merged my photos (iphoto) catalogue with my Lightroom catalogue and have been managing both the mess that was in photos and all that I already had in Lightroom. It’s a process that I started two years ago, but life intervened and I am only now taking it on.
The guiding questions: What must stay? What can go?
Back when I used a film camera, there were limits based on how many rolls I had at the time. Each photograph felt precious. In the digital age, there seem to be no limits. In my Medium format, mirrorless Fuji GFX50, I have two 128GB SanDisk Extreme Pro mini storage disks. That’s a lot of images, even when shooting in raw format. I’ve been trying to do some in-camera editing (like those that are obviously under or over exposed) before even downloading, but I often forget.
The Spring 2024 edition of YES! magazine had a fabulous piece about digital clutter, called The Weight of the Cloud, citing five significant impacts the ‘cloud’ has on the planet and her people:
a. Electrical inequity (Global data centers used between 240 - 340 TWh of electricity in 2022, on par with the entire Great Britain (334TWh in the same year);
b. Digital Desertification (data centers are among the top 10 water consuming industries and 20% of the centers are located in moderately to highly stressed watersheds);
c. Going to Waste: Servers demand rare metals, often harvested using child labor, and have an average lifespan of 2 - 5 years - - Apparently on 20% of the electronic waste is recycled annually.
d. Turn down the Noise: Air handlers, chillers and diesel generators generate a constant hum that impacts the health of those living near the centers.
e. Digital Colonialism: To serve the global need for data storage, some data centers are being constructed on indigenous lands.
My reaction: Why would I want to contribute further to these expansionist practices? Is my tendency to save every image I have ever created just another form of greed? How might learning to let go of my images be another way to practice living not just within the planet’s means, but also within my own capacity to manage complexity?
See “My Reaction” at the bottom of Footnote #6, just above.
And then, let me be honest. Now that I have gone through this process, I tested my strength. Could I actually delete all the other images? Well…
When I looked more closely, it turned out only 339 of those original 818 images were actually portraits of the tree, like the ones I have here. The others included close-ups and shadows and roots and leaves. And then there were a few that were completely unrelated and needed to be re-labeled.
So now that I’m down to 339, can I still delete 50% of them?…Almost. Just now, at 6:11pm on Thursday, March 7 I deleted all of the 1 Star images.
And now there are 175. Still a lot of tree portraits.
So touching to share your history with a particular tree Lyn! This post came in a time I am more than ever aware of presence of trees! But I do have a special tree, a lovely Linden tree that makes my heart sing even from half mile away! It’s in MN Arboretum, with hundreds of others, but always calls to me ( I even sprinkled a bit of ashes of my last cat, making it even more meaningful for me).
Love your conversations.. ❤️
Ohh Lyn, I'd love to have a conversation about photographing as ritual, and photographing the same place repeatedly. I adore your commitment to this tree through photographs. I hope your knee gets some relief soon!!