You think you have problems?
Well, first of all, I never found a good way to catalog negs except by date, since they're all together in strips of at least 5 or 6 unrelated frames. So the important negatives, like the ones from Germany 50 years ago are well cared for. My more recent negs from the vast array of RFs that were mine, briefly, until they passed to another, are in loose leaf binders, most of which I have some vague idea of where they set. I haven't had a darkroom since 1964 so the negatives were not printed too much until I procured my scanner. Then, I scanned and printed negatives like a man possessed — for about three weeks. Then the negs went back into relative obscurity.
Meanwhile, my main remembrances of photography past — my 40,000 slides and transparencies — still gather dust in several steel filing cabinets. It was always easier to catalog and file transparencies according to a system I invented. The system ultimately proved inadequate, but it was too late to change it by then and I can usually find what I'm looking for. This was handy after the three week negative scanning period I alluded to above. I then indulged in a two week slide scanning frenzy.
Through trial and error and great expense, I ultimately, finally, absolutely learned that it was easier to short circuit the process and just use a digital camera. The trouble with digital cameras was that they weren't impressively mechanistic and precise and distinctive in the Leica manner. They could do more than you usually wanted to do (what do I care about color space?). There was no illusion about keeping "this one" because it would be a classic. It's really hard to pretend I'm using the D300's manual mode when everybody knows it's childishly simple to get great shots in program mode.
And then, there's RFF — the best ol' photo site on the internet. I feel very much the transgressor here, lurking around, enjoying the high visual and text content, knowing I'm a dirty rotten digital shooter, locked out from the RFF scene because of my need to sell a little internet stock and the feebleness of my retirement-funded photo budget.
So, don't worry. Be happy.
