20,020



I finally have over 20 thousand photos in my iPhoto library. These are photos taken between March 2002 and July 2008 so just over 6 years. These are not all photos I've ever taken, of course. These are just photos that are keepers. I've probably taken twice the number if not more. I also have about a thousand or so to add just for this year that I haven't gotten around to processing. However, the number 20k just struck me and I wanted to mark the day.

The famous French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson said in the 60s that "your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." He was saying this in the analog age when taking photos was expensive and processing them was time-consuming. If I were to try to translate the spirit of his statement for the digital world -- I guess one can say that..."your 100,000 photographs are your worst"...that leaves me with about 80,000 more to take before I can take something decent :-(