Digital images should be organized as they are taken. While it may be tempting to put off sorting those images of tombstones, census records, family photographs, doing so will result in a large sorting task later.
That task may be so insurmountable that it never gets gone.
Or all those images may still be sorted when your phone or camera is not the only thing that is dead.
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I label all individual files the same way. What. Who. When. Where. ie: US Federal Census – John Smith – 1880 – TN. Documents I have filed in a folder with individual person’s name. Individual person’s name folders are located in a folder labeled with surname. Photos are in folders labeled PHOTOS-PERSON, PHOTOS-PLACE, PHOTOS EVENT. The photos-person folder is broken down same as documents. photos-place and photos-event have surname subfolders. I have digital resource materials in a folder labeled Library with subfolders of Books, Seminars, Maps. And I have another folder for forms. The files are labeled Document Name – Year form was created – State. I started doing this after I had spent 2 years scanning photos my mother had collected over 40 years, about 7,000 photos. It did take a few years to get things organized. I also visit cemeteries and take photos. I have those in a folder labeled Cemeteries with subfolders of cemetery names/locations/people-birth year-death year. And after all this work I have a cloud back up service, store my genealogy stuff on an external hard drive, and periodically make dvd’s to send to close relatives. This last one I call off-site storage.