Last week’s Sunday Travel section of the LA Times featured their annual Summer Vacation Photo spread.

I always wonder how the editors make their selections from among the many hundreds, if not thousands, of photos submitted. And I always wonder if they’d have chosen one of mine.

But, of course, I’ll never know, since I’ve never bothered to enter. (Just between you and me, some of the winning photos aren’t nearly as good as mine!)

I got one of those email messages recently, “Your iCloud storage is almost full. Upgrade to 1 TB for $9.99 per month.” A not-so-subtle reminder to delete, delete, delete. This, despite the fact that I already have moved massive numbers of photos to Google Photos which offers free, unlimited photo storage.

It’s a problem. I like to take photos. Lots of photos. But I don’t like to sift, sort, edit, identify or otherwise organize my photos. I especially don’t like to delete photos. And that’s not considering video, which is a whole ‘nother conversation. It takes ruthlessness to delete, delete, delete. It makes me tired and cranky. It’s not one of my better talents.

You can imagine the wealth of photo resources my company would have if we combined mine with those of all my employees. Going back 30+ years … we could probably rival the Getty Images library! If someone could tell the story of what we do in pictures with a slideshow or video – what an incredible marketing tool that would be.

But that takes time. And a bit of skill. But mostly, that would take organization.

So I had my trusty assistant, Ellen, post a job opening on Craigslist this week for a “Digital Librarian.” I’m envisioning a young photography student who needs a flexible, part-time job, who can come in and get my bulging library edited and organized. Tagged and identified. Or purged.

I want him/her to be ruthless. But not too ruthless. I don’t like ruthless people.

And this is the point, dear reader, at which I get distracted. Distracted by the word ‘ruthless’. And Google, as she always does, delivers a wealth of information. Following is from a website called, The Word Detective:

“Ruth” was a common word in Middle English, first appearing (as “reuthe”) around the 12th century, meaning “pity or compassion,” and in the 13th century we spoke of a person who was kind, charitable, and just generally felt your pain as being “ruthful.” 

A person who lacked those qualities of kindness and charity, whose only concern was for personal gain and never shed a tear for the victims of his greed, has been, since the early 14th century, known as “ruthless,” literally lacking the quality of “ruth.”

While “ruthless” is alive and well in popular usage today (and “ruthlessness” is even celebrated as a virtue on Wall Street), the sweet and gentle “ruthful” has almost entirely faded from our collective memory. The Oxford English Dictionary labels the word “archaic,” and its most recent citation for its use in print dates from the early 19th century. A search of Google News today for “ruthful” produces the epitaph “Your search – ruthful – did not match any documents,” which a quick perusal of the grim headlines confirms. It seems that this world could do with a “ruth transfusion” as soon as possible.

Okay – back to the subject at hand. Following are a handful of my favorite photos from this calendar year and the story which, in many cases, makes the picture all the more special.

This Burmese grandma (or perhaps, great-grandmother) shows her love and amusement, as the baby boy cries at the sight of our strange white-faced group, after we’d hiked to her remote village in the mountainous region near Inle Lake.

I took this photo last weekend when Scott and I did a road trip to Joshua Tree. This must be a place from where Dr. Seuss drew inspiration for his characters!

I don’t know why I love taking photos of laundry. The thought of it should bring back painful memories. As a young girl, I could never hang laundry on the backyard clothesline to my mother’s satisfaction. In this photo, taken in Croatia, I love the soft pastel colors against the raw texture of wood and stone.

Sometimes a photo isn’t anything close to an award-winner. This one isn’t. But for me, it recalls the absolute thrill of seeing of mama gray whale and her calf, frolicking for the tourists in Magdalena Bay, Baja, Mexico. But that experience – difficult to capture in a photo – was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

Can’t miss with kids, especially curious kids like these children peeking out from their window, somewhere in Myanmar.

Clouds are another favorite theme of mine – maybe because we don’t see great cloud formations in southern California (where it never rains …). Don’t know which is more dramatic in this photo taken in Split, Croatia – the sky or the Emperor Diocletian’s Palace, built in the year 305 A.D.

I love the expression of this old man as he serenades some passers-by at the San Telmo Antique Market in Buenos Aires.

I like corny pictures, too, like this one of Scott pushing a huge boulder uphill at Joshua Tree National Park. For both of us, it was our first time there. Another world – just a 3-hour drive from our home.

These pelicans commandeered this boat at the marina in La Paz. We saw them when we left the marina, and when we returned two days later. I don’t envy the fisherman who will have to clean up all the bird poop!

Sometimes I have the presence of mind to get a ‘different’ shot, at an unusual angle – like these feet of Buddhist monks lining up for the middday meal. My camera (a Sony NEX-6) has a handy LCD screen which tilts two ways, allowing me to see what I’m shooting from ground level as well as from overhead.

The beauty of Inle Lake, Myanmar, is well documented by some of the world’s greatest photographers. On my January trip, my second visit, I didn’t capture a perfect photo of the famous one-legged fishermen as I did the first time. It’s always a matter of luck, light and timing. I love the layers of misty mountains in this photo, with the fancy tourist resort in the foreground.

I take a lot of photos out the window of a moving bus. Sometimes I get one – like this – that captures a scene just as I saw it. Can you guess this is Ireland?

There’s a professional photographer in HoiAn, Vietnam, who takes people out on early-morning photography tours. He has a friend, an old fisherman, who cooperates by posing with the colorful fishing nets. I wrote about my experience in a blog I published earlier this year.

Of course Kiet uses a better camera than mine. Next time, I want to spend time with him afterwards to go through the images I shot and help me choose the absolute “best” one – from the perspective of a pro. (Who wants to come to Vietnam with me?? It’s one of the most incredible places you’ve never been – I promise you that!)

I love that I captured the cigarette smoke curling around the fisherman’s face.

It’s 8:30 on Friday morning, and I could spend many more pleasurable hours choosing photos – but I must stop sometime. I’d love to dedicate a future blog post to YOUR favorite photos – and the story behind the image. Please share yours with me. Email to mmurphy@wowtravelclub.com

And if you have any suggestions to share about how you organize, categorize and preserve YOUR precious photographic memories, I’d love to know about them. I’m sure it takes a fair bit of discipline, and – yes, even ruthlessness. (And I promise I’ll still like you!)