Metadata
The twenty-year test
Imagine your series is found twenty years from now, without you there to explain it. What would it take for it to remain understandable, attributable, and usable? The answer rarely lies in the images themselves: it lies in the context you took care to attach to them. Here are the twelve details that move a set of images from “orphan batch” to “documented series.” This isn’t bureaucracy, it’s the minimum for the work to survive being forgotten.
The twelve fields
- Title, a clear series name that identifies it unambiguously.
- Author, who made the images. The basis of attribution and rights.
- Date or period, when the series was produced, even approximately (a range beats nothing).
- Location, where, at a useful scale (city, site, region).
- Context, why these images exist: commission, personal project, event, assignment.
- People depicted, who appears in the images, where relevant (and useful for releases).
- Description, a few sentences on the subject, the intent, what the eye can’t guess.
- Editorial status, draft, selection, approved, published: where the series stands.
- Rights, copyright notice and usage terms. Without them, an image circulates unprotected.
- Process, technique or medium (digital, film, print, scan), useful for preservation.
- Exhibition or publication, where the series was shown or published, if applicable.
- Location of originals and prints, where the master files, and any prints, physically live.
Fill in at the series level, not per image
Good news: most of these fields are filled in at the series level, not image by image. Author, context, rights, and process are often common to the whole set. So you can document quickly, then refine at the image level only what varies (people, fine description). Since perfect is the enemy of done, aim first for full coverage of the twelve fields across the series.
Where this information should live
These fields correspond largely to IPTC and belong in an XMP sidecar, next to the originals rather than in an isolated spreadsheet that will eventually get lost. The information then travels with the images.
In practice
- Treat this list as a series closing checklist: nothing is “done” until all twelve fields are at least attempted.
- Fill in at the series level first, refine per image after.
- Keep the information with the files (sidecar), not in a separate document.
Obscura Flow offers project templates and indexing (the QQOQCP method, IPTC/XMP fields) that make this checklist operational: documentation becomes a workflow step, not a chore pushed off to “later.” It’s the practical extension of documenting a series, turned into an applicable sheet.