How to structure and organize photo collection?

[udusvsudu]

Please help with suggestion how to organize scanned photo collection. Recently I had digitalized collection of ± 15 thousand negatives, diapositives and photos taken between 1920 to 2000. I discovered that most advisors on “How to structure and organize image archive” assume that the pics were taken by modern digital camera, with exact date, location and other info accompanying the picture. This is not the case of scanned old photos or negatives stored in shoebox. I'm trying to find out if there is some “secret” method of file naming convention and archive organization. For image viewing I'm using Google Picasa


Right now the scanned images are stored in numbered directories which correspond with numbered boxes containing the actual negatives or photos.

For 85% of pics I can guess the year taken, another 10% by decade, and the reminder by 25 years. Very few pics can be identified by year-month.


Likewise I can identify 85% of people, place / location picture was taken or by the event. The oldest member of our family (94) will help with identification of the remainder.


Many thanks Udusvsudu

 

[Designer]

It sounds as you might have to devise your own "code" by which to sort and catalog. Just my first thoughts:

xxx-yyy-zzz

Where the x's could indicate probable person
y's could indicate probable year
z's could indicate probable place

Then in your database, you could sort and cross-reference, and search.

(edit) Then you could also attach metadata to each photo as to who identified the person, date, or place, year placed into the database, etc.