Lupines, Mt Washington Rail Trip

A friend mentioned she was going through her photos and it’s been a walk down memory lane… but also a rough road at times. She’s a creative, renaissance type of woman, actually writing her memoir. If I know her, this will be a combination of writing, paintings, sketches, photos and more. I can’t wait. She mentioned going through photos and looking for ideas to organize them, so today, she is my inspiration for sharing photo organizing ideas with you.

If you have kept years worth of paper (and now digital) photos, it’s a big deal to finally sit down and start perusing your memories. It’s also a big deal to sit yourself down if these photos are not just yours, but are inherited from your parents. While it’s a wonder to walk through our memories, it’s also emotional and I want you to be prepared for that. You’ll find photos of people who are no longer on this Earth with us — and  you’ll grieve, again, for your loss.  You’ll find vacation photos of fun times you might think of returning to. Children when they were younger are a joy, as is the growth you can see through the years.

If faced with many photos, or what feels like “many” to you, I’d first ask you to decide, as my friend has, what you want to DO with your photos? Who do you want to share the best ones with? Deciding on a fun project or goal is the first step to tackling those bins, boxes, bags – wherever they are. This will give you focus as you wander down memory lane.

Some ideas –

Have grandchildren? What about mom or dad’s history in an album? Or grandma/grampa’ s history. Share your photos and your stories. Check your local bookstore; there are hard bound books which will take you and your grandchild through an “interview” about your life. Add your words and add your photos.

Someone getting married in the family? How about creating a life history for the groom/bride?

Someone graduating high school/college? One woman created an album for her son’s graduation gift of his athletics during school.

At my 50th birthday, mom and dad presented me with a photo album, all about me! My life history, in photos, with some wonderful captions. I was also given the baby book my mom kept up during my early years.

Paper photo collage for a big anniversary (50th coming up for anyone?), or an important birthday. What a great way to get to know someone!

Vacations/travels: Some people create a photo album (paper or digital) for each vacation. I took a trip to the Panama Canal last year and took hundreds of photos. A new camera, so many experimental photos (easy to delete later on, once I’d learned. Same idea as with print photos that don’t turn out; easy to get rid of.) At home, I chose the best 25 and printed those for an album, so I could share with friends. I chose 50 or 75 and put onto the digital picture frame that’s in the living room. How fun it is, during winter months, to see the beautiful waters of the warmer climates! Or to see the ship the day we went through the locks. Keeps memories alive.

Sue touches the walls of the Canal

Create a collage of your vacation – which allows you to pick and choose your favorites. The major drugstore chains have all kinds of neat gifts you can put the photo collage on, which can get you thinking, too, if you’re not quite sure what to do with photos. You don’t have to develop the photos at that store; you can upload your own. Create your photo collage, you mug of photos from your Nova Scotia trip, your mouse pad — all great gift ideas, and they help you focus on favorite photos.

Photos or slides: Scan the ones you want to share. The next generations are all digital, so scanning won’t be a waste of time at all. Easier to share across the country. On the Panama Canal trip, we bought a wonderful service/product. We took a package of ship photos of us and of the islands we visited. We uploaded our own favorites. Together, these made up a digital and a printed bound book we could share, in person, on Face book or via email. There are other services; this was helpful since it was the cruise line we’d been on. Or here’s Snapfish.com, one service to start with to familiarize yourself with your options.

Inherent in these ideas is that you’re not organizing or using all of your photos. You’re focusing on one project at a time; after all, at some point, if you have a lot of photos, you’ll want to get back to your family, your business, your gardening or whatever brings you joy.

Organizing the photos you’re not using right now for this project:

• Use archival supplies for inherited, older items. My colleague, Melissa Manon, of Archives Info, has a preservation kit to check out first, with some fascinating articles about preserving family history.

• Do a quick sort, to make it easier later on to find what you need. Examples of a “quick sort” would be: by event, vacation, years, child or family. This is to help later on, when you know what your next project will be. A quick sort is dealing out the photos like cards into separate boxes — which for temporary storage, can be boxes from Target, the Christmas Tree Shop, or if you’re an online purchaser, the Container Store.  Label your boxes by the quick sort groups you’ve decide on.

• Ask family what they want you to hold onto (or give them a gift of at a holiday or birthday!). When you ask, it does two things for you: gives you focus; gives you permission to let go of photos you thought someone might want, but you’ve found out they don’t!

So enjoy your trip down memory lane. Stay on the path you want to be on, and you’ll have a wonderful time.

Tags: Memories, photographs, photos

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Downsizing Dilemmas- Solved, Harmony at Home, Next Chapter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.