I’m currently in Singapore obtaining my Social Visit Visa for Indonesia.  I’m spending the free time studying compelling images of great photographers, examining my own work on how to improve it (more on this next time), reading and mentally preparing for my next adventure in Ubud, Bali.

Having lived in Jakarta for 2 1/2 years, I’m quite excited to see a more relaxed, traditional side of Indonesia, and Ubud is the cultural capital of Bali. I’m also looking forward to the milder temperatures of in-the-mountains Ubud; Jakarta’s steel and concrete jungle is HOT!

David duChemin, an excellent photographer whose blog I follow (and recommend you too follow!), recently wrote about how some photographers look for shortcuts: forgoing the path less traveled, and sometimes lacking a certain work ethic at the expense of their own photographic and professional growth.  The blog post was food for thought.  I think the avoidance shortcuts should go beyond the practice and study of capturing light.  We must focus on avoiding shortcuts after pulling the memory card or film cartridges out of the cameras as well; we must have a disciplined workflow.  The undisciplined workflow is as dangerous as the other already-mentioned shortcuts.

Every professional realizes there’s a basic need to put what is most important at the top of the list of things to do. I must wonder how many of us actually practice this? Most certainly, procrastination is arguably the greatest enemy of the professional photographer.  I am a good example: I knew I should make 2 backups of my RAW files before editing and processing images, but rarely did so.  Of course I did not properly apply keywords on a detailed scale.  I relied heavily on my noggin to remember what images I had available, and where they were stored, instead of using the power of my image processor and database (Adobe’s Lightroom, in my case).  I’m only now, after about 4 years of photographic self-study, beginning to get assignments.  Only as my work began to come into demand, have I been forced to take a more disciplined approach.  I had to get a grip on my workflow, or be swamped under!  I already have 9000+ images.  No shaking your head or laughing at me: I’m sensitive!

Seriously, how many of us were in this same situation when starting out?  And how many up-and-coming photographers are in this state of chaos now?  We know we should have 2, or at the very least one, backup of our files, before formatting memory cards and editing images, yet how many of us say “I’ll make the backup later”?  How many projects have been completed, without having backups at all?  Sure, maybe we are lucky there was no hard drive crash or loss of data.  Still…

As we grow in skill we learn and improve our craft through the discipline of the frame.  We also must remember to grow in the discipline of workflow as well.  If you work for an organization that handles back-office digital darkroom stuff for you, God bless you: for the rest of us, we’re on our own to get street smart!

I’m still not the most disciplined: I’m still mortal, and so are my digital assets.  Every recently, I had a hard drive crash (yet another LaCie crash).  I had to fight hard to retrieve those files.  3000 selects and derivative files by copying them 10 at a time before the faulty disk’s controller took a smoke break every 10 minutes!  It took me over a week to move the files to a new drive.  I now have every file backed up in two separate locations.  I learned fast that discipline of outside the frame is as valuable as discipline within the frame.  Spending many quality hours trekking to less charted locations, studying the works of the masters as well as our own work, and perfecting our images in the digital darkroom only to lose and misplace those images due to an undisciplined workflow is a sad thing.

Yes, a truly disciplined workflow has several costs: time and money for examples.  I know there is a certain cost involved for things like extra hard drives.  Unless we have a significant amount of capital, we have to improvise.  Also, make sure the workflow is one that is efficient for you.  Maybe Art Wolfe’s workflow is one that won’t meet your needs, or maybe it will (Art’s pretty smart).  Having a workflow you instinctively know you won’t follow is like having a massive tripod, pro camera body and beefy lenses that you leave home or in the hotel: what’s the point?  Start small if you must, but at least “start.” Believe me: the cost of that seemingly expensive hard drive is going to seem like a small amount when your entire collection is facing oblivion.  I’ve been to the edge of oblivion twice: there won’t be a third time.

We lesser mortals often wonder and research what the great ones do in their approach in the field and in their workflow.  It must be more than a dozen times I’ve seen “first thing I do is make 2 backups before erasing the memory cards…” It’s time we stop merely reading about proper workflow, and start exercising proper workflow.  We have to make it a priority:  That’s the key.