{"id":11094,"date":"2026-08-04T20:00:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/?p=11094"},"modified":"2026-08-04T11:59:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T11:59:15","slug":"less-is-more-digital-hoarder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/2026\/08\/04\/less-is-more-digital-hoarder\/","title":{"rendered":"Less is more – Digital hoarder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Since the previous century I have been saving my digital photos. My first camera was the Kodak DC220, a bulky 1\u2011megapixel device with an enormous battery consumption. After that came a Canon Digital Elph<\/a>, a Canon Ixus<\/a>, and eventually my current Canon Powershot G7X<\/a>. Probably my last dedicated camera, because these days I take almost all my photos with my phone<\/a>. I always have it with me, so taking a photo is much easier but it also means I think less about it, and a lot of digital clutter ends up in the mix.<\/p>\n

A few times a year I add the photos from my camera and phone to my archive. That archive started small: maybe 30 or 40 photos per year. But taking photos has become so easy, and sharing or receiving photos so normal, that I now have years with more than 10,000 photos. Far too many, of course. Sometimes I even feel like a kind of digital hoarder: someone who fills their house with everything they can get their hands on, but digitally. Every little screenshot, every failed photo, every duplicate shot ends up somewhere in a folder. It piles up without me noticing, to the point where the archive feels more like a digital storage unit than a collection of memories. By deliberately pruning, I make the archive usable again, a collection I can browse without feeling overwhelmed, where the photos that remain actually say something about that year and about my\/our life. That, to me, is the essence of selecting an archive.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I introduced a clear rule: about 100 photos per year. And for big events, a maximum of 100 photos per event. The focus is on photos with family and friends, supplemented with a few landscapes or nature shots that truly add something. It\u2019s the same logic as my paper albums. I do look at those from time to time, precisely because they only contain the photos that matter.<\/p>\n

100 photos per year, 26 years, plus a few major events. Still a substantial collection, but finally one I can view, cherish, and maintain. An archive that works as an archive again, and not as a digital basement full of forgotten files. A way to preserve memories without drowning in the sheer amount.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the previous century I have been saving my digital photos. My first camera was the Kodak DC220, a bulky 1\u2011megapixel device with an enormous battery consumption. After that came a Canon Digital Elph, a Canon Ixus, and eventually my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fotos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11094"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12263,"href":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11094\/revisions\/12263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leiden365.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}