People are often stunned when I tell them I use Python in my workflow. I’m not a data scientist, but I’ve found practical ways to let code do the heavy lifting in my work, including photography and videography.
My Python journey started last year when I had to build a sitemap of our agency’s website. That meant documenting and indexing nearly 2,400 links on our site. On top of that, my supervisor asked me to back up every single PDF—nearly 900 documents. Doing that manually would have taken me days, if not weeks.
Wanting to work smarter, not harder, I Googled for tools or an easier way to do this. When an AI suggested writing a Python script to automatically download all those PDFs from my list of links, my interest was piqued. I typed back, “Yes”, ran the script in Google Colab, and watched it complete a task that should have taken weeks in seconds. That was my lightbulb moment. That’s when I knew learning Python would be one of my annual goals for that year.
I looked for a local class or workshop, but couldn’t find one. Luckily, a coworker who is a data scientist and who knows some Python (though he primarily codes in R) offered to teach me. He took me from running scripts on the web to setting up a real Python environment in VS Code and using package managers, so I could run scripts locally. Since then, I’ve written nearly 20 scripts that save me time and take the headache out of my everyday tasks.
Knowing the basics keeps me in control when I use AI. Instead of letting it take over, I used it like a coach when I first started—asking it for exercises on things like For and While loops. Now, using what I’ve learned, I’m able to double-check its suggestions.
Getting comfortable with the CLI let me use free, powerful tools. I started learning and using PowerShell commands to let my computer do the heavy lifting for file management. My comfort with running programs through the terminal made it easy for me to use open-source tools like FIXXER to quickly cull, rate, and organize my photos after a shoot.
I don’t know everything about Python, and I’m not trying to. In fact, my annual goals this year include continuing to learn Python and additional terminal commands. My strategy is simple: learn what I need to solve the problem, and build my skills one challenge at a time.
