Metadata
The problem with free keywords
At first, you type keywords as you go. Then, six months later, the same idea exists in five variants: portrait, portraits, Portrait, model, person. Search becomes a guessing game: which one did I use that day? Free keywords are fast to add and slow to exploit. A controlled vocabulary, a thesaurus, fixes this without requiring you to become a librarian.
Free tag vs. controlled term
A free tag is text typed on the fly: nothing guarantees its consistency from one time to the next. A controlled term belongs to a reference list: you choose it rather than retype it. The difference is decisive at search time: with a controlled vocabulary, searching a term retrieves every relevant image, not just the ones where you typed the right variant.
The building blocks of a simple thesaurus
No need for a heavy machine. Three mechanisms are enough:
- Synonyms:
sea,ocean,seasideall point to the same term. Type however you like; search finds everything. - Broader and narrower terms: a light hierarchy, from general to specific,
animal›bird›gull. Searching the broad term surfaces the specific ones. - Categories: separating places, people, techniques, and themes avoids dumping everything into one bag of words.
Leaning on a method: QQOQCP
To avoid missing dimensions, the old journalistic method QQOQCP (Who, What, Where, When, How, Why) offers a simple grid. Each question suggests a family of terms: who (people), what (subjects, objects), where (places), when (period, season), how (technique, process), why (context, intent). You get a balanced vocabulary without reinventing documentary classification.
Adopt it progressively
Don’t build a complete thesaurus before tagging a single image. Do the reverse: start tagging, then promote recurring terms to controlled status as you go, attaching their variants as synonyms. The vocabulary grows with use, instead of being a theory imposed from above.
Common mistakes
- Too many terms: an 800-entry thesaurus is no longer usable. Stay at the level of granularity you actually exploit.
- Mixing singular and plural, cases: set one simple rule and hold to it.
- Confusing theme and description: the thesaurus classifies, it doesn’t narrate, narration goes in the caption.
In practice
- Decide on one reference term per idea, and attach synonyms to it.
- Organize into a few categories (places, people, techniques, themes).
- Adopt the vocabulary progressively, promoting recurring tags.
- Keep it small and alive rather than big and dead.
Obscura Flow combines free tags, a thesaurus (synonyms, broader/narrower terms), and QQOQCP indexing: you type freely, then consolidate, without ever giving up the simplicity you started with.