Ten Thousand Photos and Counting

When I got my new iPhone 6 Plus a couple weeks ago, one of the main reasons was for the camera. I constantly take photos for my blog, and all my other social media interests like Instagram and Tumblr. Along with my digital art work, these tools are "essentials." But my iPhone keeps reading "downloading" on my photo section and I can't make it stop. In the interim I decided it might be a good time to delete whatever photos that had no personal meaning for me. It took a couple of hours to just continuously delete all the images that I've taken over the last couple of years. It started at around 11,000 and I think I must have gotten rid of a couple thousand. I still can't quite figure out how the cloud works, but I'm more interested to ensure photo stream transfers images among my phone, my husband's phone, my iPad and his iPad. If nothing else the images remain on the device that took them. I'm just glad I can also access the photos via the Internet on my blog and whatever else I use. But I can't help myself- I love taking photos - just for the heck of it! But how do I get rid of that constant downloading message? There are about five thousand images I don't even see - just empty little boxes. One of these days I'll need to take a trip to the Apple Store. I just can't seem to figure it out myself.