Tips, Suggestions and Best Practices for Journaling with Images

 This list is being generated “live” while I work with and get feedback from the Journaling with Images series. It will grow - so come back when you can. If you would like to be kept in the loop in person let me know (timothy.smith@outlook.com).

Let’s start with traveling: a mix of dry practical tips and juicy over-the-top suggestions for using images to capture experiences “on the road!”

You’ve seen the movies!

Scene: A forest-green jeep - careening through a savannah of lions, elephants and gazelles. Maybe the lions are chasing the gazelles or maybe they’re chasing the jeep. No - they’re definitely chasing the jeep! The jeep hits something and starts to flip over -bouncing high. A guy jumps out while it’s still moving! He has two cameras hanging around his neck and one in his hand. Zoom in! Determined confident eyes in a hard-set unshaven face (“Australian 3-day” unshaven). Hungover and edgy from days of waiting - but now – now it’s here - he is READY!

Zoom out! He’s running – crouched - but fast! Without looking his hand finds the right camera and swings it from his hip nearly to his eye in a smooth arc - taking shots all along the way. Now the lion is closer – the zoom is no good! He has a smaller camera in his other hand – SNAP, SNAP. Then he hits the ground and rolls. When he comes up, he has flicked open a bag on his belt, grabbed another lens and has snapped it into place. BAM! The lens whirs - SNAP SNAP! The lion hesitates a split second – stunned momentarily by the blur of purposeful and patterned movement! That’s all the time the camera guy needs! The jeep has rolled over twice and has landed on its wheels! He jumps on the back and grabs his last shots as the driver speeds away… the lion in momentary futile pursuit.

Flash Forward! He’s at a bar - peeling stickers off of beer bottles. Next to him a woman perched on a bar stool - peering down through the smoke from her cigarette, at the cover of a magazine he can’t be bothered to look at. Zoom through the smoke to the image on the cover! Bottom left - the tailgate of a truck, dark green, battered. Periphery - blur of motion and - Center - a vortex of trailing dust – in the vortex at focal length – the eyes of lion - beaming anger, rage, loss …. and undeniable admiration!

Ready? Here are some tips.

  • Have all your devices ready. They can each play a role.

    • The best camera is the one that is ready to use when the shot occurs. Sometimes that is your camera - but often it is the phone that you where just pecking out a message on. If you see a shot – get it now, at least once! You can shift to your “best” camera a moment later.

    • Have your camera out and have it set to either automatic settings or the settings that are your best guess for where you are right now.

    • Synchronize the date and time on your devices (cameras, phones)

      • There are a growing number of opportunities to easily synchronize media from your various devices. Arranging and organizing them by date and time are (or will be) standard options. So keeping that correct can be useful.

    • Optional: Turn on GPS too if available

      • For the same reason above: If you don’t use location info now, it is possible that you will have opportunity to use it in the future.

    • Make sure your device has plenty of memory.

      • Travel is expensive and, for most of us, relatively rare. Don’t jeopardize your ability to remember an experience for the sake of few dollars.

      • You may only visit a location once in your life. In a sense, if you don’t ever recall doing something, you might as well not have done it.

      • Computer, camera and device memory is cheap and getting cheaper.

  • Back up and store your images

    • If you are on a multi-day trip, backup to your storage at the end of every day or before you go out the next day.

    • Put your storage in a secure place

      • Don’t keep your storage with your devices – even on the plane. You are less likely to lose everything if they are in different places.

      • Use the safe-deposit box in the hotel room

  • Take mundane, artless and disposable images for documentation purposes.

    • In addition to your more artistic, perfectly framed and composed shots. Take few minutes to use your device to document where you are, what you are doing and what is going on around you.

    • Just Do It. Get this out of the way fast so that you can start getting creative!

      • When you enter a new scene take a few shots to document the moment. What kinds of things? The sign at the entrance of the park. The map. A write up of the history of the place. The ticket booth. Think of this a diary entry which handle mundane things. “I drove to work. I called Mom on the way. I listened to the audio book ‘Grapes of Wrath’.”

      • Do the same thing when you leave.

      • Take one or two big, zoomed out, pictures of the scene. Spin around, snap mindlessly.

    • Why?

      • These images will be enough framework to capture a surprising amount of details (weather, time of day, crowd size, clothing, price of entry, the order in which you did things). They allow you a starting point later when you want to write about or describe the event more fully and deeply.

      • The date/time (and possibly location) information can be used to create time-accurate journal entries. “We finally got to the park at 12:15. It was great but we left at 16:50 because closing time was 17:50.

      • They can help you write about larger frames of time: Day: On Tuesday we did this, then we did that. Trip: On that trip we visited this place and that place.

      • Your device could die (run out of power, memory, whatever). This makes sure that you get enough detail to help fill in more later.

      • Sharing - In some cases these are kinds of shots that other people want to see. They may not understand, like or have a big enough view screen to appreciate your more subtle work.

    • If they’re ugly get rid of them or filter them

      • There is good chance that these shots will be mundane, trivial, ugly and unlovable. You may not want to show these as beautiful examples of your photography or your trip. You may say: “Hey – EVERYBODY takes that shot!” So you might delete these after they serve their purpose – or, if you have a system that allows you to sort and display images by rating or ranking, you can make sure they are filtered out when you don’t want to the see or show them. So just do it - get them – mine them for details and then move on. Get these shots done and out of the way - don’t spend a lot of time, or creative energy, getting them. With that done you can settle down and get creative.

  • Capture Objects: In addition to people, give some attention to the objects you have around you. Especially things that you often take with you into different contexts.

  • Bookmarking: Books are superb examples. Not only do the images recall to us where we are, but also what we have been spending time with and when and what we may have been thinking about. You will be amazed at how rich your memory recall is when you use an image of book as a window into your mental world and the context you have been thinking in. And when you mixe these with journal notes (such as dated excerpts and annotations the effect is truly amazing) - you can revisit a previous internal cognitive space with stunning lucidity and ease. Definitely more on this later

  • Here is an example GO->

  • Other Objects: Special pieces of clothing. Modes of transportation: cars, bikes, planes. Gifts. Toys.

  • Coming Soon

    • Finding your shot

      • Windows into memory, streams of experience and thought, and the world in which they occur

      • The Ocean and an Eye-dropper

      • Perspectives from other observers

      • Points of View

      • Anthropomorphism

    • Taking images in museums

      • Get what your intended to see

      • Get what you actually see

      • Create something new

    • Photographing in groups

    • Photographing in teams

    • Processing -Practical and Creative

      • Cropping

      • Out-takes

      • Series

    • Managing your image collections