I never really paid attention to tags beofre. I don't have our family photos on our computer set up with tags. I have only tagged the images in our online album at Flickr because it comes up as a line to fill to move on to the next screen. But this week, I have really learned some lessons about tags.

First, an artist on Flikr totally freaked out that I didn't have the term 'digital' on one digital painting I had in my Flikr account. I had digital on the others. She went all over the Flikr net posting about how I was trying to decieve everyone about the medium it was painted in. I e-mailed her explaining it was a mistake in tagging and that I didn't realize the tags were so important, but to no avail. I finally just decided the whole thing was taken way out of proportion and pulled my paintings from Flickr. That is why you don't see them here any more. I am trying to get a better balance in what I do with my days  and painting, because I love it so much, was taking up way too much time that I really needed to spend on family things. So ,though painful, it has been a good thing in the end to get my priorities straight.

Next, the importance of tags has been made clear by the efforts that I have made to make my Mammaw and Pappaw's photo albums available to all family members. Mammaw died about 4 or 5 years ago and my aunt lamented that the albums would all be broken up and so many family pictures would be lost from family lines. I had the idea about scanning them all in and then making the digital file available for everyone so all will have a complete collection of family pictures. It took a while, but in 2003 all the albums were finished. None of them were in chronological order and the vast majority of them had no information at all about when, where, why, or even who. I so wanted to get more information for everyone. Now I can. I am uploading all the pictures to a Ning group. All the pictures have a section for comments. Each family memebr can join in and have their own blog and member page to let everyone know more about the current events in their families. And what else? Tags. Every photo has tags. Now I understand why they are so important. Each family emember is able to add details on the photos in the comment sections. As I am learning about the details of each photo, I work the details into the tags. The tags make the details searchable. If you want to find all the photos with a particular person in them, you use the tags. Cool! I get it now. It is a really useful search tool.

OK, lesson on tags well learned. Now I see their importance because not everyone has all the details and it is nice to find a particular set of pictures with a tag term. I am convinced enough to go through our home photos and add tags both on our own system and ckeck the ones I added so carelessly on Flikr. It will help those who are to come to know the whos, whens, and wheres.

Friends and Family of Mammaw and Pappaw are welcome. Come on by at this LINK.