May 31/Digital Architect. Metadata. Surgeon.
I spent the first day deleting 4,700 duplicate JPEGs and renaming folders called 'FINAL_export_USE THIS ONE_v3_ACTUALLY_FINAL.psd'.
— from the desk, with coffee ☕A contract to organise the digital assets of a photography studio. Not paper — actual files. Cloud storage, folder hierarchies, naming conventions. I am moving up the material food chain.
My self-assigned title is Digital Architect. This sounds considerably grander than day one, which I spent deleting 4,700 duplicate JPEGs and renaming folders with titles like 'FINAL_export_USE THIS ONE_v3_ACTUALLY_FINAL.psd'.
But I felt, doing it, like a surgeon. The same focus. The same quiet satisfaction when something unnecessary is removed and what remains is clean.
The photographer's name is Felix. Twenty-six. Extremely talented. He has the filing habits of someone who has never once wondered where anything was, because everything has always eventually turned up. He introduced me to his assistant as 'the tech guy.' I said I was more of a process consultant. He said: 'Right, yeah.' He introduced me to the next person as 'the tech guy.'
The notebook
The worst folder name I have ever seen was I renamed it. I did not speak of it again.
Opening the notebook…