Outsourcing keywording?

As a digital photographer it's not very difficult to end up with thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of images. To be able to find anything in that massive archive some form of image management is usually necessary. Part of that image management is keywording.

Even though I try and catalog and keyword my images as I travel, it's very difficult for me to keep up due to my very busy schedule. Not only do I need to keyword new images, I also have a large backlog.

Has anyone ever thought about outsourcing this job? I know at least one person that has, but I think he got lucky My requirements are maybe higher than average, as I'd like to have at least common family names as a keyword, but if I had the time and energy i'd prefer to even have species names. This makes it quite difficult to outsource I think.

I'd be interested in hearing what possibilities there are, or how people in general deal with keywording.

Cor

Mikey needs money and knows fish and just might have some time coming up...

Hmmmm....i guess we know what Julie said eh?

hahahah

expecting a certain PM by Bella soon...

I have the same problem and have been working on this for some months. My camera broke and has spent months being repaired so I have time on my hands to start work on this.

I had an archive of nearly 4000 pics, which I have now cut down to around 1000 of the best ones. I have then categorised by common name, scientific name and family name and will put the gallery on the web.

They way I got around the labour problem was to grab a load of fish books and hook my girlfriend up with an endless supplies of coffee and coke. Oh plus the promise of a present when it's been finished. The website will be online within a month or so, so will I post a link here and would appreciate any comments.

From what I've seen out on boats with groups of photographers, I think the biggest problem is that many photographers are too scared to get rid of some the average shots. I seem to get fussier and fussier every time I come to save images, now my trip folders are getting smaller with each trip!

Though I do know and realise how hard it must be to have to press that delete button and say goodbye!

Mind you time is something I often have plenty of, this means I can regularly go through my images and deleting shots that have been preceded by better images!