Cherished Memories-My system for saving, sharing, and actually doing something with all those family photos.

What to do with all those cute, (and not so cute), pictures of your kids.  If you have a smartphone, (meaning you live on this planet), and you have children, chances are, you have a plethora of digital images.  Some are on your phone, some on your computer, some in the cloud, (wherever that is), and some sadly linger in the never-to-be-retrieved archives of lost, broken, or stolen devices.  Mom’s understand the tragedy of the later situation.  Nothing is more heart-wrenching than losing a piece of your family memories.  No, we feel much better if all our memories are safely tucked away in some digital device, never to be viewed again, right?

More than once a day I ask the question that has often saved me from myself and my overzealous desire to be a good mom.  That valuable question is, “What’s the point, why am I doing this?”  In this case, why do we spend hundreds of dollars, or for me thousands, on a camera or a phone with a nice camera, just to leave the pictures unviewed and unused?  If you ask my children they may say it is some form of modern torture device I use to annoy them.  For me, with being a mom comes mom-guilt and pictures were a major source of guilt for me.  I was determined to figure this out and let go of the guilt!  It was a process, but I’m here to share what I learned and my system for taking pictures, keeping them safe, and doing something with them.  Hopefully, some of these tips will help you along your path to guilt-free photos also!!!

1.  Don’t overdo it.  Do you really need 400 pictures of your kids dying Easter eggs?  Have a purpose in mind when you are taking pictures.  “What am I going to do with these,” and “How many do I need,” are good questions to ask yourself.  For me, I am usually looking for enough good pics to create a scrapbook page, but we will talk about that later.
2. Train yourself to get rid of the not so good pictures.  Many people like to go through their photos while they are taking them, deleting the images they don’t want to save.  This takes a little more time at the moment but can save you a headache down the road.  For me, I use the same system for my personal photos that I use for my professional.  An app called Photo Mechanic saves me hours when going through my photos.  Because it allows me to look at my images straight from my sd card, there is no loading time.  I can quickly and easily see each image in an enlarged format and mark the keepers.  The app may be a little pricey for the non-professional, but if you have large quantities of images to cull, the $125.00 may be worth the time it will save you.
3. Have a system for organizing and saving your pictures.  This is where most of us get lost!  There is an overwhelming amount of options out there for saving photos.  I will share with you what works for me.  If you have a great system that works for you, leave it in the comments.
   1. I save all my pictures on an external hard drive.  If you have no idea what I am talking about, check it out here.  An external hard drive with 2TB of storage runs about $60.00 and can save years of pictures.  Saving these on your computer is just going to slow it down.  An external hard drive is portable and can be used by multiple computers so if your dinosaur quits working or your laptop gets a bath, your photos are still safe.
   2. Save your photos online also.  You can use iCloud Photos, Google Photos, Shutterfly, or many others.  Each of these has an app for your phone that will automatically upload photos so you don’t have to think about it.  If you are uploading from a non-phone camera, you can easily upload photos from your card or camera to their website.  Some are free, some you have to pay a fee.  I use Google Photos AND Shutterfly because I am paranoid like that.  :).
   3.  Organize them!!!  I prefer to make a folder for each year and for each month inside that folder.  For the month folders, you can name them 01, 02, 03, instead of January, February, March, so they will be in order, (since our computers like to alphabetize things).  You can also organize them into events, like Christmas, or Summer Vacation.
   4. Save them and delete.  This seems a little counterintuitive, but saving your photos each month and then getting them off your other devices will keep you up to date, and keep you from having duplicate images saved.  It will also keep you from having digital overwhelm!!!!  I’m pretty sure that is a real thing!!!
4. PRINT, PRINT, PRINT!!!  Whether it is a wall you like to display their bright and shiny faces on, a photobook you make to relive your favorite vacation, or those prints your grandma keeps asking you for, just do it!!!  I make an online photo album for each child each year and then a family book for the year.  This is amazing for two reasons.  First, I have a tangible book we can get off the shelf and enjoy, and my books are saved on my website.  So if the book gets destroyed, all my hard work doesn’t.  This may sound overwhelming but here’s my secret.  I only work on photo albums from the year before.  I do all 2018 books in 2019 and all 2019 books in 2020 and so on.  This means all my pictures are on the website and ready to use when I am ready to use them, and that I don’t feel the need to be too detailed for any one event.  I make sure I write a little about each page but I don’t spend too much time on anything.  It seems that a little time-lapse gives me the perspective to keep it simple!  I also have a wall I am slowly filling up with multi-photo frames for each year.  (Not sure what I am going to do when it fills up).  AND FOR HEAVENS SAKE, PRINT OUT THOSE PROFESSIONAL FAMILY PHOTOS!!!  Research shows that kids have a better sense of who they are and connection with their family if they see pictures of themselves in their homes.  Crazy huh!!!
5. Start from where you are and keep it up.  Do not, and I repeat, DO NOT get out the old boxes of photos or go through your “from the beginning of digital age” pictures thinking you are going to start from there.  It will never happen.  Start today with a system that you can keep up with.  Designate a specific time each month to save your photos to a couple spots and delete them from your device or SD cards.  When you find a system you can keep up with, then is the time to revisit those old photos.  Happy organizing!!!  You are on the road to NO MORE PHOTO MOM GUILT!!!