How is the archive organised?
What state is it in; how is the archive organised?
“This is something all photographers have to grapple with no matter how early or developed their career is ...", says Hingley, "... it's always hard to find the time and resources."
Hingley ensures all her work is in digital form, including when she is working with film. Information is embedded in the digital files. She works with small scans and contacts, which she uses for editing and to send to commissioners and publishers. She uses Dropbox to send images both to contacts in the photography network and to an assistant overseas who undertakes retouching.
With Under Gods, HIngley produced digital images cheaply and quickly, that she could print out and give back to her subjects, a process she continued with The Jones Family.
As far as possible Hingley edits as she goes along: “With Under Gods, there are 32 images in the exhibition, 40 in the book, 1000 on my hard drive. They are edited up to a point - I don’t want to go back to it.”
“ When you shoot digitally, you take a lot of pictures. When I was shooting the Lunch Club, I deleted any I didn’t want there and then and deleted others when I edited later. If I were working with film, I would have it all, but then I wouldn’t have shot so many pictures – it’s a different process of editing.“
Hingley is fearful of amassing too much material. “I have to keep minimising everything,” she says. Whilst her recent work is well-organised, the earlier work will need more attention in preparation for her relationship with Agence VU.
Hingley explains that she was not taught to organise her work. “People learn about the organisation of their own work and archive through assisting other photographers; it’s not taught and it should be.” Hingley stayed with Dutch photographer Bertien van Manen on a number of occasions and assisted in sorting through the material for her Let’s Sit Down Before You Go project, deciding what should be kept. Van Manen herself learned how to organise her work through assisting another photographer.
Now with Agence VU, the agency has Hingley's whole archive of images high res digitally stored including the Under Gods exhibition prints and objects.
