Controlled vocabulary

Thursday 21 May 2015

I’m the kind of guy who uses a controlled vocabulary to keyword his photos. This means that I use consistent words to describe things. Am I sadly obsessive? Maybe, but there are benefits.

There are about 75,000 images in my Lightroom catalog—some scanned, some born digital. I have assigned keywords and other useful metadata to almost all of them. For keywords I use the Getty Research Institute’s excellent Art & Architecture Thesaurus, the Australian Pictorial Thesaurus, and my own controlled lists of terms for projects, places, people, and specialised subjects.

A digital camera image from my catalog. Here’s some of its metadata: Keywords: information > data > metadata; United Kingdom > London; photographer reflection; architectural elements > walls > exterior walls > facades > storefronts. Location metadata: 51°31’1” N, 0°8’33” W, Regent Street, London. Captured: 2010-09-06 13:07:54

Give me a few seconds and I can find images marked with rustication (99 hits), or thermae (35 hits), or Lucy Marquis-Kyle (1,873 hits). As I add new images and metadata the whole collection gets richer.

Keywords: sculpture (visual work) > reliefs (sculptures) > bas-reliefs (sculpture); light (energy) > daylight [natural light]; architectural elements > friezes (ornamental areas); Italy > Pompeii; health facilities > public baths > thermae [Roman baths]; vaults (structural elements); sites (locations) > World Heritage Sites. Location metadata: 40° 45’ 2.994” N, 14° 29’ 2.43” E, Pompei, Campania, Italy. Captured: 2010-10-12 14:26:34

filed under Photography + Ratbags + Words

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