Starting a creative business or project. Why you should photograph everything you make.

Starting a creative business or project.  Why you should photograph everything you make.

Throughout my creative business life spanning of over 30 years I always photographed everything I created.  No one told me to do this, it was just something I did.   When I first started out I did not realise the importance of this.  Now I do.

Over the last few days I have been sorting out all my photographic records of all sold waistcoats, about 850.    This comprises of several huge ring binder files crammed full of photographs in A4 plastic covers.   In addition I have several shoe box size plastic containers full of 6" x 4" photographs and some smaller albums.  At least a thousand photographs needed to be sorted and put into some order.    The reason for this quest was to look for a certain image of a garment I created many years ago.

My first camera was held closed with gaffer tape.  It worked and the images were just enough to create a recollection before selling.   Bearing in mind my first garments were created long before digital photography.   Then came computers and the wonderful facility of  selecting and editing images before printing.    Always print your photographs as you cannot rely on computers to preserve your images for the long term.   Think of your old family sepia albums.  Precious beyond words.

I am in the process of putting all my sold works online.  Its a mammoth task scanning and numbering each photographed garment.

Now for the scary revelation and the reason why you should photograph everything you make.   I am shocked to realise that I am scanning images of work I created 13 - 15 years ago of which I have no recollection creating.  I forgot  about a huge number of sold garments I made.   Crazy because each garment I create is an extreme labour intensive process from start to finish,  from cutting the cloth, planning the design, hand painting then embroidering before making into a garment.   Long hours of  intensive creative thought and energy.   How could I forget.

Keeping memories in your head is not enough.  Four images of work I completely forgot about.  Four of about 50.

All my works will be available online in the next few weeks. Contact me for further information.

Thanks for reading.