Photography Archive Systems Lead — Documentary Work

Overview

We are preparing a 50-year retrospective exhibition and accompanying monograph for a widely published documentary photographer with a substantial institutional history.

The physical archive has been organized and inventoried. We are now entering a critical phase: designing the digital intake, organization, and review system that will shape how this work is seen, selected, and preserved going forward.

We are seeking a US-based Photography Archive Systems Lead to architect this workflow and remotely direct on-site interns carrying out the hands-on digitization.

This is a systems, leadership, and judgment role — not a scanning or technician position.

What You’ll Actually Be Doing

• Designing the end-to-end digitization and intake workflow
• Defining file-naming, metadata, and versioning standards
• Translating those standards into clear instructions for on-site interns
• Building a clean, review-ready image corpus (~1,000 images) in Lightroom Classic (used here as a review and selection environment)
• Supporting a structured image review process for exhibition and publication

Who This Is For

This role may be a strong fit if you have experience in:

• Managing photographic archives, collections, or large image libraries
• Museum, editorial, or institutional photography workflows
• Digital asset management or photo operations
• Directing staff or interns and enforcing standards remotely

You do not need to be a Lightroom evangelist. You do need to be able to design systems, explain them clearly, and ensure they’re followed.

Engagement

• Contract role with defined milestones
• Potential limited continuation through exhibition and publication phases
• Meaningful influence over how a major body of documentary work is organized and presented

Screening Questions

1. Describe a project where you designed or significantly improved an image-management or digitization workflow.

2. What experience do you have directing on-site staff or interns remotely?

3. How would you structure a Lightroom Classic catalog (or similar system) to support collaborative image review?

4. What tools or methods do you use to document and enforce workflows across teams?