1. Kater

    Kater Member

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    Saving resources such as photos, descriptions...

    Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by Kater, Sep 12, 2017.

    Hi, everyone. Something I like to do for scenery is to get inspiration from other people's photos, quotes, etc. I used to have a Tumblr where I reblogged scenery photos, like of the ocean and forests and mountains, so I could look at them for inspiration when I was trying to write a scene set in a specific place. Sadly I deleted that tumblr a long time ago (I don't remember why, probably something about trying to cut back on online time...) and now I'd like to start saving photos and other scenery resources again, but I don't know the best way to go about it.

    Do you do anything like this? How do you save scenery photos? Do you have a blog, a Pinterest? Do you download them to your computer? Do you separate them into categories?

    I had a thought to start a new tumblr just for saving writing resources and tagging them thoroughly, then use a tag cloud to auto-generate all my tags. So when I'm writing a scene set in a forest, I can just click the "forest" tag to see all of my forest related posts. That's a lot of work to set up though and I wonder if it's the best way to go about it?
     
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  2. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I absolutely do this. It's not that I have a poor imagination (I have a rather fanciful and robust one), but sometimes I want to see the thing in order to ponder what it makes me think of, what it reminds of, how it makes me feel. Right now I'm in the middle of long siege with a scene that takes place aboard a tall ship in a fantasy story. I've been scouring the internet for images of their resplendent posteriors, their woodwork, their ornamentation. Not because I care about the actual names of these things, but because I want to describe them emotively, from the groin, so to speak. :) I keep these various images in my Scrivener research folder. One of Scrivener's many charms. ;)
     
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  3. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    I don't really get inspiration from pictures, but I do use reference photos when writing. Each of my stories goes it's own folder on my my hard drive that's regularly backed up, and whatever pictures I use during the writing process get saved there.
     
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  4. izzybot

    izzybot (unspecified) Contributor

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    I have a tumblr for writing prompts (and reference material), and I've got some image prompts on there. No super in-depth tagging system - images are all tossed into the 'img' tag together, since it's mostly word prompts. It works well for my purposes, though.

    I'm not sure why you'd need a tag cloud? Once stuff's tagged you can just search that tag and see everything.

    I know a lot of people use pinterest, but I refuse because I hate how they limit what you can see if you don't have an account. It's a principle thing by this point.
     
  5. Mayarra

    Mayarra Banned

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    I have two things actually.

    One is a tumblr where I save a lot of material that I can or plan to use, maybe I will never use some of them but it is good to have them.
    I also have a "scenery" folder on my personal cloud, where I have subfolders for forests, mountains, cities, coeans, anything I find useful. that way I can access them anywhere at any time as the cloud updates the folder on all my devices whenever they have internet connection.

    Most images I get from sites as tumblr, but some I just find on google or stumble upon them
     
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  6. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    Evernote, Evernote, Evernote.
     
  7. JadeX

    JadeX Senior Member

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    Absolutely! I have a folder on my desktop where I put all the files pertaining to my story, and in there I have a sub-folder called "Reference" where I save images like this, usually with a title describing what it is.
     
  8. Kater

    Kater Member

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    I like a tag cloud because I use a lot of descriptive tags and don't always remember them later. A tag cloud for tumblr auto generates all your tags for you so you don't have to remember them. I have a mental issue (probably adhd) that makes staying organized and focused extremely difficult so tagging without a cloud is a huge stress for me.

    I recently made a Pinterest but it uses so much data that I'll probably get rid of it. I also hate how they limit people without accounts.
     
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  9. Robert Musil

    Robert Musil Comparativist Contributor

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    Yeah, I do this. I use Google maps/streetview a lot, since most of my locations are inspired by real places. I just save them to a folder with the rest of my WIP because I am old and not very tech-savy.
     
  10. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Pinterest which can also be good for social presence and marketing when you get to that stage.

    I also use unsplash which is a free photo library (you can even use its photos for commercial use - book covers etc)
     
  11. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    As a writer of historical fiction, I often keep photos for reference.

    I have them stored in my main writing folder that contains my other research materials. I put them all inside the folder named Research. My research folder contains category folders like 'Timeline' and other named categories. One of the categories is 'Photos.' I keep these research photos stored by subject matter in smaller labeled folders inside Photos, with a name that lets me know what kind of photos they are. Interiors. Barns. Women's clothing. Men's clothing. Trains.

    This sounds complicated, but it's not. And it forms part of my regular backups which I do on various devices. Because I have them stored in an organised format, it's easy to locate the ones I need, or just browse them for inspiration.

    I find the quickest way to capture the photos from the internet is to take a screen shot, then open and save it via my Preview application. (I use a Mac desktop.) Then identify and move the photo to the appropriate folder. Done, dusted.
     

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