Digital Photography Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 88 Keep a Digital Diary

Diaries enable us to document the big and
little moments in life. And your pocket digital camera might be the
greatest journaling tool of all.

Life moves so quickly. Before we know it, an entire year has raced
by. Sometimes, we have difficulty remembering what we had for dinner
last night, let alone what we did last month.

Keeping a diary helps give life perspective. Not
only can we look back and appreciate the richness of our existence,
but a diary can help us remember the specific dates that events
happened. Many people don't want to take the time to
explain, in words, the big and little moments as they occur.
That's understandable. But our pocket digicams and
camera phones can help us document our lives, and computers make
organizing those images easy.

I'm going to walk you through an easy and effective
way to keep a photo diary. Once you get a feel for the workflow and
the types of tools you need, you can create a system that works
better for you. Here are the necessary
components:

Digital camera

You can use a pocket digicam, camera phone, or both. The key to a
photo diary is having a camera available when events happen.
It's not going to work if your only camera is a
bulky digital SLR. In this case, portability is more important than
image quality. Not only does your camera record the images of your
life, it also captures when they happened. Every picture you take is
timestamped. For this to work properly, be sure to set the correct
date and time on your camera.

Digital shoebox

As you record the events of your life visually, you need a place to
store the images. In this hack, I use Apple's
iPhoto (http://www.apple.com/iphoto). I can upload my
images, write comments about each one, and output the diary to paper,
CD, or even a web site. Other great digital shoeboxes, such as
Adobe Album
(http://www.adobe.com) and
iView Media
Pro (http://www.iview-multimedia.com), work just
as well.

Taking a picture every day is a good habit to acquire. It
doesn't have to be a masterpiece, just something to
show what kind of day it was. If it's autumn, a
simple picture of colorful leaves will do. Caption it,
"The maple trees in the front yard are in full color
today and look beautiful."

Seems kind of boring, doesn't it?
You'll be surprised that, over time, those images
are anything but boring. Have you ever wondered, in hindsight, when
the trees in the front yard turn colors? You'll know
the exact date by referring to your digital diary.

Once a week or so, upload the pictures to your digital shoebox. All
shoeboxes allow you to create custom albums, so
you'll want to make one exclusively for your diary,
as shown in Figure 8-7.

Figure 8-7. A photo diary using iPhoto

The date and time are embedded in the image file itself, so you
don't have to worry about when something happened;
the software will display that information for you. But you might
want to add a few words about what was happening when you took the
photo. Don't worry about writing an essay here; just
use a few words to describe where you were and what you were doing,
as shown in Figure 8-8. This whole process should
take only a few minutes. The idea is to make this easy; otherwise,
you won't do it.

Figure 8-8. Add a few words to each image to complete the record

Over time, your digital diary will grow and become quite interesting.
Even after only a couple of months, you'll find that
looking back is more fun than you would have imagined when you
started the project. But there's more.

A great benefit of the digital approach is its archiving ability. At
the moment, optical discs, such as CDs and DVDs, are the best bet for
preserving a diary. But what about software compatibility? I
don't necessarily want to burn an iPhoto library
onto a CD, because my nephew, who works on a PC,
won't be able to read it.

To archive
your diary, export it as a web catalog that can be viewed on any
computer with a simple web browser. Any good digital shoebox allows
you to do this. In iPhoto, make sure that the album is selected and
choose FileExport. You have some basic options to choose
from, as shown in Figure 8-9. Most important is the
"Show comment" box, which ensures
that the text you've included with each photo is
transferred to the web catalog.

Figure 8-9. Include photo comments when exporting

After you click the Export button, the digital shoebox will assemble
your web pages and place them in the folder you designated. To check
your work, simply open that folder and double-click on the
indexl file.

Your web browser will open and you'll see a page of
thumbnails with the date beneath each, as shown in Figure 8-10. The highlights and mundane events of your
life are there before your eyes.

Figure 8-10. Your diary, transformed into a web page

If you click on any image on the thumbnail page, the full version
will open with the comment text below it, as shown in Figure 8-11. This is nothing like the diaries from the
days of old. You have full-color images that capture the moments of
your life with the precise dates and comments about what happened.
Your diaries can be viewed on any computer by anyone you want to
share them with.

Figure 8-11. The full version of an individual day

At this point, I recommend you burn the web version of your diary to
at least two CDs or DVDs: one to keep on hand at home and another to
store offsite, perhaps at your office or in a safe-deposit box. This
will ensure that your memories will be safe for years to come.

One last thought about sharing your memories: you might want to post
your diary on your personal web site [Hack #50] or even make a hardbound
photo book [Hack #86] .
This is the great advantage of digital storage: once you have the
information neatly tucked away in your computer, there are countless
ways to share it with others.