Photo Freedom

I’ve been told that I take too many photos.  And, sometimes, I almost agree.  There are currently 750+ photos in the Logan library alone.  There are 2000+ photos in my current library that dates back to 7/14/2007.  Yup - that’s 2000 photos I’ve taken in the last 15 months.  A little much maybe?  But then I go back and look at some of the moments I’ve captured and am reminded again why I love my cameras.  The only problem is finding a way to organize the photos so that I can go back and enjoy and share them when I want to. 

Electronically, I discovered Adobe’s Lightroom about a year ago, and it is one of the most incredible pieces of software for managing digital photos and simple touch ups. 

My constant challenge has been organizing printed photos - both for long term storage and to enable a manageable method of scrapbooking.  On Angie’s advice, I borrowed from her and read Stacy Julian’s Photo Freedom and have finally been inspired by a system of photo storage that I think is completely doable.  But, of course, this is like any other organization project - there’s always a price to be paid up front to get the long term return.  So, this weekend, I began in earnest my journey toward photo freedom!

The first step is gathering and organizing all of your photos by decade.  The first stash of photos I found was one of the more current - 1990’s & 2000’s.  The binder and page protectors you see are for the current photos that I want to keep handy for browsing and selecting from for scrapbooking. 

The next stash I found has been living in my college foot locker since Chris and I moved into our first apartment back in 1995.  They’re mostly from high school and the first couple of years of college (early 90’s).  What you can see is just the top layer of photos.  The entire bottom of that footlocker is filled with photos.  Yikes! 

What really freaked me out about this project was all of the places that I know I have photos stored away.  On top of that, my parents recently moved, and I have several boxes of photos & other moments that my mom found when she was packing and sent my way.  It’s really frightening how many I have to sort through, but I’m actually looking forward to having the excuse and opportunity to go back through all of them.  

Probably the biggest challenge to this project is simply finding the time to work on it, but I’ve found that even just 15 minute snippets of time are useful.  The other slightly less significant but still present challenge is keeping the cat from using the photos as chew toys while I’m sorting them out.
 

Grrr!  She knocked this envelop of photos off my desk (along with some cards) and apparently sorted through it until she found the tastiest one.  But, I digress ... 

Photo freedom here I come!

Comments

[Mamo --aka Mom]

Oh, the photos I sent you--Just think what was lost in 1998! You would have received more!

[Amanda]

if it makes you feel any better, i took 106 photos just today, and it's not JUST because i'm doing that scrapbook project.... that's just because we went to the dallas arboretum with our playgroup today! :-o

[spiffyjeff]

there's a place called www.thedigitalconvert.com that'll scan all your boxes of photos for pretty cheap. they give 2 copies plus upload it all to a family webpage for sharing. you should check them out. it's not worth wasting all your free time over.