On a Mission to Teach Photo Organizing

Photo Credit Nancy Aikins

I've been on the road a lot lately, educating the public on photo organizing.  By the end of this month, I'll have spent time teaching in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and New Hampshire.

Buried in a Sea of Photos...
Photo organizing is definitely a hot topic these days!  Most of us have boxes and old albums full of printed photos, digital photos all over our computers, old home movies we can't watch anymore, not to mention boxes of memorabilia and children's artwork.  We don't know what to do with it all, and it continues to pile up, creating an even more difficult situation to deal with.  It becomes a vicious cycle.  One couple who was at one of my recent events told me, "We're here because we can no longer walk into our office."  Another woman said she was there because her husband keeps all of their memory cards in a drawer as backup.  And when I mentioned digital hoarding, many people agreed that that term describes them!  Many of us download our memory cards but don't go through and delete the pictures we don't need, taking up extra space on our hard drives and making it more difficult to go back later and find the pictures that are truly important to us.

It's not that we don't feel like our pictures are important.  To the contrary, our photos and memorabilia are extremely important to us!  Studies have shown that after family members and pets, our photos are the next thing we would try to take out of a burning house.  So why have we let ourselves get into such a state of disarray?

The answer to that question is easy...lack of knowledge and time.  It's as simple as that.  But we took those pictures (or saved that memorabilia) because they had meaning to us.  Personally, I think we owe it to ourselves to create a system to ensure our photos are available to us in the future.  But it's easier said than done.

Creating a Plan to Preserve Your Memories
If you live in the Northeast, and you'd like to hear more about how to jumpstart the memory preservation process, please join me at one of my upcoming community events.  I'll be at The Memory Studio in Old Greenwich, CT on May 3rd, at the Cherry Hill Library in Cherry Hill, New Jersey on May 8th, at the Fairfield Museum and Historical Center in Fairfield, Connecticut on May 15th, and the Cragin Memorial Library in Colchester, CT on May 16th.  They're listed under my Events tab at the top.

There's lots of other places to get information on preserving your memories.  Your Digital Life is one of my favorite sites.  Techlicious recently posted a great article on The Best Photo and Video Digitizing Services.  If you'd like some help and want to work with a professional, check for a photo organizer local to you on APPO's website.  They can help you with your digital dilemmas too!  You can also join their Facebook Group: Association of Personal Photo Organizers for tips and techniques.

Photos are a gift we leave to future generations
One way or another, I hope you'll find a way to get help with your photos.  How great would it be to know that you won't be a stranger to future generations?  I want my grandchildren and great grandchildren to know what life was like for my generation, and I also want them to know ME, and where they came from.  It truly is a gift that we can offer them.  Watch for my upcoming blog from guest blogger and genealogist Jen Baldwin on how to research your past!

The Sparkle of a Photograph

by Halli King

Taking photos is what professional photographers do.  They get the right shot, the right colors, the right exposure, and the shot looks great. When the professional photographer creates the perfect shot, it looks pleasing to the eye, so complete and easy.  One might think, "I can do that!"  Some people can; others, like me, don't always create the best or perfect shot.  Unfortunately, the attitude used to stop me from taking photos.  I would be hesitant to take the shot, in reservation of not getting it just right.

Along came digital and the ability to see what you are taking before it is printed.  Now, people take photos of events that happen in their lives on their phones, cameras, iPads, and other digital devices.  They keep these photos on camera cards and keep the cards, rarely printing the photos they so carefully took.  I too have joined the multitude of picture takers.  I snap pics on the phone without thinking.  I take the digital cameras to special events to record the events.  I may even download these jpegs to a computer to keep track of them.  But am I at the same place as before when I was reserved about taking photos?

We take photos to remember an event that has touched us in some way.  We want to remember the smile, the color of something just so.  If we keep these special photos on a memory card (or hard drive), we can lose sight of the event we wanted to keep.  Memories can fade and with that goes the descriptions of the events we hoped the photograph would trigger.  Print the special photos and write something about the event they are "talking" about.  If the photo is a restaurant, why was it important?  Was the food you ate the reason for the picture, or was it something else?  I took pictures of the door to the kitchen at a restaurant we visited as a family.  Ok, I took several pictures of the door.  Why?  Believe it or not, the children in my family were mesmerized by the opening of the door.  It just seemed to know when someone was approaching the door.  The topic at our meal was about the door, not the food or the fabulous scenery.  On the way out, the waitress showed us the trick...a foot panel that opened the door.  I wrote this story on a card that is with the pictures of the door.  The kids still laugh when they see the picture of the door.  That is, in my opinion, why we take photos and keep them.  The photos are triggers to memories that bring us back to when they were taken.

Take photos.  Print the photos that are the sparkle to the memory.  Write something that goes with the photo so that the sparkle to the memory will be there for others (and yourself) to enjoy for years to come.

I have joined an organization called APPO, dedicated to preserving memories.  I, along with my colleagues, work with clients to help them to preserve the sparkle to the memory.  We work in all types of media: photos, memorabilia, film, digital, printed material, and much more.  We can help you preserve some of the sparkles in your life!

About Halli: 
I have been helping others preserve their photos and memorabilia for 9 years.  When I first started working with photos, I motivated others to work on their photos.  After a few years, I noticed that people just don't have the time to work on their photos.  It wasn't that the photos were not important to them; they just didn't have the time to make the traditional photo albums.  

Our photos and memorabilia document our lives, showing the life we lived and what we valued in our lives.  Taking the time to organize the memories that are important to us and those around us is very significant.  I enjoy when I can help a client take their memories and create something that honors those memories.  That is what Cherish the Photos is all about, placing the memories so that others can 

celebrate our memories, too. I offer help in organizing photos/memorabilia, be photos or jpegs, in creating memory books, memory displays, wall prints and much more! 

World Backup Day

Did you know World Backup day is March 31?  When was the last time you backed up your photo files?  Unfortunately backing up is something most of us don't think about until it is too late.  I'm sure you know someone who has lost some or all of their photos at some point in time...or paid a large sum of money to have those photos retrieved after a computer crash.

Creating a secure backup is important.  Not only should your photos be accessible, but you should also be able to recover them in the event of a computer crash, natural disaster or theft without it being a difficult or financially prohibitive process.

To accomplish this, you're going to want to backup and archive in several ways.  An external hard drive should be part of your backup plan.  However, keep in mind that research shows external hard drives have a limited shelf life of five years or so.  If you keep your external hooked up to your computer for backups that happen on a regular basis and your computer is stolen...the thief is probably going to take your external hard drive too.  That happened to a friend of mine.  Her computer was stolen right out of her house, with the external hard drive attached.  She lost a couple years worth of pictures.

You may also want to consider Picture Keeper.  Picture Keeper has built in software that searches for and saves your photos in their original file structure.  It's easy to use, because it's programmed to find your photos for you.  The next time you plug it back in, it'll find the new photos, as well as those that have been edited.

You'll also want to take advantage of cloud storage options.  One of my favorites for photos is Linea for its photosharing and beautiful viewing capabilities, but I also use Dropbox on a regular basis.  When considering a cloud storage service, you may want to consider privacy and security, and you should make sure you can retrieve your images and export them back to your computer in the same resolution you uploaded them at.  You also want to make sure the site stores your images on more than one server.

Another backup option is copying your photos onto archival quality CDs or DVDs and storing them away from your home.  Fires and natural disasters, while not regular occurrences, can happen.  However, remember if you store on CDs or DVDs, you will need to re-record at some point, as technology changes.


And last but certainly not least, the printed photo is your best backup!  Printed photos are not vulnerable to technological obsolescence and can last hundreds of years if stored properly!

If you need help with coming up with a backup plan for your photos, the professionals at the Association of Personal Photo Organizers can help.  Check out the APPO site for a personal photo organizer in your area.

Check out the World Backup Day site for more backup solutions!

How to Photograph Your Teenager!

by Karen McCann

When you walk into the room with your camera, does your teen throw their hands in front of their face and run the other way?  After raising 3 teenagers and surviving the "Mom, please, no more pictures" phase, I can impart a few tips that have helped me survive this and capture some great images along the way.

The first tip is to try to have a camera with you in your bag or car for any photo op that pops up.  I have been known to keep a disposable camera (I have several from weddings) in the glove compartment.  Carpooling your teen around town may provide unlimited opportunities, and will capture them and their friends in their daily lives.

Use humor to sooth the savage beast is my second tip.  If your teens start to become irritated at your attempts to take their photo, getting silly will soften them up and take some of the attention away from them and onto you.  You can be clicking away as they roll their eyes at your efforts to get them to laugh.  You are sure to chuckle at the shots you will end up with.

Finally, don't worry much about the perfect pose.  Long gone are the days you can dress them up in matching outfits and sit them on the couch perfectly.  Just capturing your teen in "real time" will be far more valuable in the long run when you look back at those photos years from now.

After all these attempts, your teen still may not appear to show much enthusiasm at your end results.  But, I'll bet deep down they will be glad and will cherish these memories as they grow up.

If you'd like some more tips on photographing your teen, check out this blog post from Confident Camera Moms.

About Karen: 
Karen has been an amateur photographer for many years and has a Photo Organizing business to assist her clients with managing their photos, both digital and printed; as well as creating beautiful photo projects for her clients.  She is a Certified Member of APPO, the Association of Personal Photo Organizers.  You can check out her website Save Your Memories here.  

New Year's Photo Resolutions

Photos are powerful...they're key to memory preservation.  So...to kick off the New Year, I thought I would suggest a few "Photo Resolutions!"

Don't forget your camera.  The best camera is the one you have with you.  Make sure you have a way to record memories as they happen, whether its with your camera phone or another camera of choice!

Use your camera manual.  Your camera manual is a wealth of information, including how to set your date properly!   Knowing the date the photo was taken may be important when you are telling "your stories" as well.  Understanding your camera's functions can also help you become a better photographer. If you've misplaced it, I highly recommend going online and printing yourself a copy.  I refer back to mine all the time!

Download those photos.  Interestingly enough, many people see the memory cards as storage and don't actually download their photos.  Memory cards can fail, and aren't considered a good way to store your photos.  It also can get expensive to continually buy new memory cards.  Download your photos as soon as possible after taking the pictures.

Delete the bad photos right away.  Take the time for a quick run through and delete the duplicate and bad photos right away.  If you wait till you have months worth of photos (or even years), it then becomes an overwhelming task. Plus, there's no point in saving pictures you don't need on your computer, taking up valuable space.

Back up!  Backing up is an often forgotten step until your hard drive crashes and its too late.  I suggest backing up in at least 3 places.  Of course your printed photo is your best backup, but other great choices include external hard drives, Picture Keeper or cloud storage such as Linea. 

• Picture Keeper is a USB device with software already installed that simply goes and finds your photo files on its own.  Future backups are easy, because it only copies your newly added photos, or those you have made changes to. 
• Linea is a photo organizing and photosharing app that allows you store your photos in the cloud (and retrieve them at any time) and share them with family and friends safely and securely.  Your family and friends can even add photos to lines you have shared with them, allowing you to keep all your photos from the same event in one place!

Make your memories part of your everyday life!  Resolve to enjoy your memories more.  How many of us take the pictures and then just let them sit on our computer, never to be looked at again?  Print some out and put them in frames, make a photo collage or a photo book, or even a calendar.  We just got Apple tv and we let the photos scroll on our television during the day sometimes.  The kids love walking by and seeing themselves on the screen!

Take a class.  If you'd like to improve your photography skills, consider taking a class like the ones offered from Big Picture Classes.  Here's one that recently caught my eye! Get Great Photos with Any Camera 

Get help if you need it.  If you are struggling with what to do with your photos, memorabilia and other media, consider hiring a personal photo organizer.  A PPO can help you find the right solutions to meet your needs, whether its simply sitting down with you and teaching you the steps to get organized or actually creating keepsakes for you.  Check out The Association of Personal Photo Organizers to find an organizer near you.  If you're the type of person who is always helping others with their photos, you may want to consider a career as a photo organizer.  APPO offers training, support, a well developed website, individual profile pages for its members, marketing expertise, and more.

Here's to enjoying your memories in 2012!  Happy New Year everyone!