Printed Photo Storage: Leaving a Legacy

Where do you store your printed photos?  Most of us have photos tucked away in drawers and closets, boxes and bins.  When you have photos all over your home, it can be an overwhelming task to try to pull them together and get them organized.

Additionally, many people today have stopped printing their photos.  Its important to print those photos most special to you for preservation purposes.  The printed photo is not subject to technical obsolescence or computer crashes.  You can read more about why you should print your photos on my guest blog for Ancestral Breezes.

For those photos that ARE printed, help is here, in the form of the LegacyBox from Linea!

LegacyBox

Your photos and stories are a legacy you leave behind.  I'm a strong advocate of making albums (traditional or digital) with your most important photos.  But if you aren't ready to do that, you should be storing those photos in a safe environment, and that is an archival photo box.

The LegacyBox will hold 2400 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 photos.  It comes with customizable pouches in two different sizes, so that in addition to 4 x 6 and 5 x 7 photos, you also have room for panoramic photos, medals and ribbons.  There is also an accordion envelope to hold larger photos and memorabilia.  Also included are 54 dividers for theme or category sorting.  The deep seal-shut lid keeps your photos secure if the box is dropped.  And its versatile style suits any decor for display!  Best of all, this box is manufactured in the USA!  The retail price is $54.99 plus shipping.  Here's the specs:

Contact me or a member of the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (www.appo.org) if you'd like more information on the LegacyBox.

Set aside a little time every day to go through your photos.  You've probably got years and years of photos; organizing them isn't going to happen overnight.  But I can promise you will never regret the time you spend documenting your photos and stories!

Will Your Family Photos Survive?

There's a good chance there will be more photos that survive into the 22nd century from the 1930s than there will be from today. Considering the fact that we take so many more photos now than we ever did in the days of film, that statement seems a little shocking.

However, many of us no longer print our photos.  Why print?  Everything is digital now...our pictures are easily accessible on our computers and our phones.  They're just a click away on Facebook.  In theory, our digital pictures will last forever.  But the reality is, there's lots of reasons why digital is less durable.

Here's why:

• Computers crash.  Often times we don't have backup systems in place.  Sometimes the photos can be retrieved, sometimes not.  If they can be retrieved, chances are it's not going to be inexpensive.
• External hard drives, which many people use to backup, only have a shelf life of about five years.  They can, and do crash as well.  
• Memory cards fail.  Memory cards were never meant to be long term storage.  I've lost photos, and I know of a number of other people who have had it happen to them as well.  
• We get new computers every few years.  Digital photo files must be transferred from one computer to the next.  That doesn't always happen.  
• Our backup systems become obsolete over time.  Let's say you've backed up all your photos to DVD.  It's great to have that backup, but when technology changes, you will need to re-record.  Our computers most likely won't be able to read that technology in 30 years. 
• Online services go out of business.  Your Digital Life recently posted an article suggesting that if you have photos on the Kodak Gallery, it would be best to back them up elsewhere.  
• You should also consider what will happen after you pass away.  Your family will be determining which of your possessions to keep.  If your computer isn't in the "keep" pile, your digital images will be lost.   

Before, all we had to worry about was our photos fading over time, or being damaged by poor storage environments, or fire or natural disasters.  Today, with digital, there are many reasons why our photos may not survive.  So how do we preserve our photos for future generations?


The solution to this dilemma is very simple.  PRINT your most important photos.  The printed photo is durable, has the potential to last a very long time if stored properly, and isn't subject to computer crashes and technical obsolescence.

Create photobooks with your photos and family stories so that your stories survive.  Your stories are your legacy to future generations. Lastly, back up your photos using cloud storage.  The cloud will outlast you and I.  However, make sure you use a service that allows you to share with family members who will continue to have access to those photos.

There are some things in life that are priceless...and your memories are one of them!  What are you doing to preserve your history?  

A New Chapter

One door closes, another opens.

And happily, the door that has opened is a natural extension of what I've been doing for so many years.

For as long as I can remember, I've been taking photos and telling the stories that go along with them.   Our photos tell our stories...they capture the moments that define our lives.  But if you don't write those stories down, they get lost along the way.  So for years, I have been creating albums for myself, and later my family, documenting both the visual piece and the story.   


For many years, I was a direct seller for a company specializing in memory preservation.  It was an amazing experience.  This allowed me, a stay at home soccer mom with three very active kids, to work around my own schedule and earn some extra income.  In the beginning, it was definitely out of my comfort zone.  But I found I genuinely enjoying meeting people, hearing their stories and helping them choose the right products to meet their needs.  I met many women (and men) along the way who feel as strongly about preserving their memories as I do.  I made close friends that I never would have met otherwise, from across the country to my own backyard.  And I gained invaluable experience.

For the last couple of years, I've belonged to APPO, the Association of Personal Photo Organizers.  This organization has members across the US and Canada (and even some members in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand!) who help people who are overwhelmed by their printed and digital photos.  Our clients truly want to get their memories organized into formats they can enjoy, whether its simply getting those printed photos into a box, or creating a photo book or slide show, or even a piece of wall art!  However, they simply don't have the time to do it themselves, or the thought of doing it paralyzes them.  This too has been an amazing experience.  Its an honor to be allowed into the most precious moments of my clients' lives.   I've had the opportunity to work with people on everything from getting their loose pictures sorted into photo safe boxes to creating photo books to photo slide shows set to music and much more!

And now I have yet another opportunity to continue working in this industry, in a completely new way.  APPO is now sponsored by a new start-up company called Linea Photosharing, a technology company offering products to store and share digital images securely with family and friends.  I've been offered a position in this new venture involving these two companies.   I'll be sharing more in weeks and months to come, but if you'd like to see more about what APPO is all about, you can always check out our site at www.appo.org.  I'm excited about whats to come...and I love that feeling of walking through a new door!