23Jun-PhotoShow – I thought to build a short video-slideshow – a reel – instead of the usual Photo Release. A simple change of pace. It was supposed to be ten to fifteen frames in the animal kingdom with a catchy melody, only I couldn’t choose just ten or fifteen and mostly all I found were feathery flics. 🤭 So, it ended up about three minutes of feathery critters. I wasn’t as careful with organizing as I could have been using keywords and the like, but nooooooo, I had to do it my way. Now I have to fish through every shoot to find that one cute shot of the fawn – when was that? What year? Phhhhht!
Regardless, please enjoy this short (3-min) interlude of Feathers-in-color. I think you’ll like it.
23Jun-PhotoShow
Feathers-in-color – the short clip at the end is AI generated.
I asked Gemini why it was so hard to choose photos for a project just to see what it would come up with. As I’m beginning to realize these AIs have access to everything including a gazillion opinions and ideas. This is probably a compilation of what it could find with a quick search of the web. It’s interesting that it came up with a solution to my “problem” too, even though I didn’t ask.
begin Gemini’s response: 23Jun-PhotoShow
Choosing photos for a slideshow is famously difficult, often feeling more like an emotional excavation than a simple editing task. You are moving beyond the role of a photographer and stepping into the role of a curator and a storyteller, which changes how you perceive your own work.
Here is why that process feels so challenging:
1. The “Emotional Attachment” Factor
When you look at your photos, you aren’t just seeing light, composition, and focus; you are re-experiencing the moment you took them.
- Memory Bias: You may struggle to cut a photo that is technically flawed (blurry, poorly lit) because you remember exactly how beautiful the scene felt in person.
- The “Cost” of the Shot: If a particular image required a long hike, waiting hours in the cold, or a specific stroke of luck, it carries “emotional weight” that makes it feel indispensable, even if it doesn’t serve the narrative of the slideshow.
2. The Burden of Choice (Decision Fatigue)
In your case, with a vast library of “feathery critters” and various shoots, the sheer volume of material creates choice paralysis.
- The Sunk Cost Fallacy: Because you have spent time and effort organizing or even just having these photos, you feel a subconscious need to “use” them. When you can’t use them all, it feels like a loss of effort.
- The “What If” Anxiety: You constantly wonder, “What if the one I left out was actually better than the one I picked?” This makes every selection feel like a potential mistake.
3. Transitioning from “Collector” to “Editor”
You are currently grappling with the shift from being a person who collects moments to a storyteller who crafts an experience.
- Kill Your Darlings: This is the oldest adage in editing for a reason. To make a cohesive, three-minute slideshow, the story has to take precedence over the individual photo. An image that is stunning on its own might ruin the pacing or the “rhythm” of a sequence.
- The Disconnect: When you are the one who took the photos, you have perfect context. The audience doesn’t. You have to learn to see your own work through the eyes of someone who wasn’t there, which is cognitively exhausting.
4. Technical Hurdles
As you noted in your draft for The Earth According to Popi, the lack of a perfect keyword or organizational system turns a creative project into a chore. Having to “fish through every shoot” interrupts your creative flow, shifting your brain from artistic curation to data management, which are two very different—and often conflicting—mental states.
23Jun-PhotoShow – A tip to make it easier next time: Try the “Three-Pass Rule”:
- First Pass (The Gut Check): Go through the folders and drag every single photo that makes you smile into a “Shortlist” folder. Do this quickly; don’t think about “story,” just emotional resonance.
- Second Pass (The Narrative): Look only at that shortlist and group them by theme or sequence.
- Third Pass (The Editor): If you have 30 photos for a 3-minute video, you only need to select the strongest 15-20. Anything that doesn’t fit the flow gets cut, not because it’s a “bad” photo, but because it doesn’t belong in this specific story.
Do you find that you have a harder time cutting photos of a specific subject—like those feathery critters you mentioned—compared to others?
end Gemini’s response.
Yes, I do have a harder time cutting the critter photos out, especially the furry critter ones because I have far more feathers than fur. But that’s for another day, Gemini.
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