Sweet J’s first year book is at last checked off my to-do list! And it was only completable after I took his 12 month photos, which was belatedly accomplished just last week. Better late than never, right?!
All the photo work got me thinking. I hope I’m not the only one who struggles with how to organize, display and save photos. There are so many photos, there are so many forms they can take and, especially with children, there is some rotating that needs to be done because it’s nice to update more than once every ten years.
With my 35mm film camera, I remember being very selective so I wouldn’t waste film on bad shots. With digital ‘film’, bad shots and bloopers can be deleted with the push of a button. I do tend to keep many of the not-film-worthy shots because of the story they tell for my memory. Because I am the one who has taken the vast (vast vast vast) majority of the photos, I remember the scene beyond the lens and I love that part. What a blessing it is to have visual aids for the past.
I don’t really understand the whole byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte thing but I know I am packing some serious memory storage since snapping the first shot on our first digital camera. While I’ve very adept at editing the physical stuff in my life, I struggle with editing data stuff.
But beyond the good shot/bad shot editing, there is so much more to think about!
Should I order hundreds of prints to stick into the plastic sleeved books?
Should I not print anything, just keep organized folders on my computer? (Files that are backed up a few times elsewhere, you know, just in case.) Keep my digital frame updated so we can enjoy them?
How often should I update the photos in frames? It seems once the photos are printed, it’s time to rotate.
If I do make a decision on how to proceed, what’s the best group to work with? There are creative options, print quality and, a big one for me, cost to evaluate.
After doing a bit of everything so far, here’s my sound byte, this is how I plan to proceed, details of which I will probably share so that I am stay on task and get them finished:
- With Love Bug, I created a photo book for each of her first three years. I plan on doing that going forward for Sweet J and any subsequent children we have.
- Beginning a few years back, my next task is to put together family ‘yearbooks’ to house all the photos of our family. Instead of printing pictures and putting them in binders, photo books are a better option for us. They are smaller to store, they produce less ‘stuff’ (so.many.photos) and they allow for some narration, readable without having to flip the picture over. Plus, the creative options make for beautiful books.
- Someday, I hope to have a large wall to dedicate to various framed/unframed photos, maybe a few large bookshelves. Until then, I will print photos when I feel like it and rotate them on a semi-regular basis. Right now though, I’m still in my no-stuff-on-any-surface stage after our switcharoo.
- Like a organizational nerd, I have all my photos cataloged by month and year (the blog photos are by project, by category, by year). For my mind it makes sense and I am able to click through and find exactly what I’m looking for in no time at all.
- I have created and printed things with a number of companies including Shutterfly, Walmart, Mixbook, My Publisher, Target and Walgreens. There are little differences between them all but to be honest, none really sticks out better than the others (though I have to say that Mixbook’s design format is a cinch to work with and super fast which is a huge bonus). I try to pay attention to sales and email coupons because low cost is a big bullet point for me.
So here’s where you come in. I would love to hear what you guys think about any of this.
How do you organize, edit and show your photos? How do you display them? What companies do you work with? Anything you have seen that you want to try?
Tell me!
Thanks for anything you share!
Take care.
Thank you for this great post. I have been meaning to do something with all my photos but find it so daunting. I never file or organise them so it will be a challenge at first but much easier to keep up once a system is put in place! Going to start doing books as well much better than albums!
Good luck Peggy! I feel overwhelmed too but I know that I will be so happy to look at them when they are completed.
Much like with your recent reorganization and stuff-purge, we are on the same wavelength, Amy! I’ve been on a kick to delete a bunch of non-saveable pictures from our computer and label the folders a lot better. We haven’t printed a picture in like 3 years…so, I’m planning on doing a first year or two of Owen’s life in a book (much like you mentioned in your post), and then going back through the digital folders I’m reorganizing/relabeling and choosing a few of the best from each folder to print and put in chronological books – not sure yet if I’m going to print them or make a Mixbook. One thought…we recently threw my parents an anniversary party and scanned TONS of pictures from their albums (on the sly) for a slide show….that’s the only perk I see to printing pics out for photo albums…but I suppose when it’s OUR 40th anniversary, all of our pictures will have digital versions, so maybe that’s not so important anymore….thanks for the post – helpful to know how other people think through these things. Okay, longest comment ever…done!