Who gets this photo?
“I started dividing up my photos into piles to give to my kids, but got stuck and lost when I realized a photo can’t be in two places at once.” - Current client.
Is this you? Have you thought about the photo albums, framed photos, loose old family photos that you have, and how you will disperse them to friends and family?
My favorite photo of my grandfather, sitting on his porch in 1978.
I have several clients who decided during the pandemic that they would tackle the task of going through their old photos and dividing them up for their children. They start with the best intentions, but realize pretty quickly that it is a very difficult task to decide “who gets what” of the printed photos. What if you have one picture that everyone wants?
What if your children/family members don’t actually want the physical photos? We may have strong attachments to these photos, but often our children don’t. They may think of these old photos as clutter, after all, everything is digital now. With boxes of old photos comes decisions: what to do with them, how to store them, etc. They take up room. And if they are not organized, you may just be handing them a problem they will need to take the time to deal with later. Why not deal with it now?
You know what I’m going to suggest … scan them!
My grandmother, circa 1924.
There’s no question we’re related - this photo used to hang in my parents’ house and guests would ask when I had this old- fashioned photo taken!
This is what you do:
Take inventory of what you have. I don’t mean writing down every photo. I mean look at the general categories - vacations, baby photos, grandparents, generational photos, family gatherings - whatever makes sense given your collection. And don’t forget old documents too.
Decide what you want to share. All of it? A subset? There are probably photos you already know your kids and other family members may want. You don’t need to keep and share everything. It’s ok to discard photos.
Scan the ones you want to share and keep. If you have the time and inclination you can get a decent flatbed scanner for a few hundred dollars like the Epson v600, or you can invest in a high speed scanner like the Epson FF-680. Or remove the overwhelm and hire someone like me to do it for you and throw in your slides, negatives and videos too.
Choose a platform to share your photos. It can be as simple as sticking them on a thumb drive, or with a bit more work, post them on a website or sharing platform such as SmugMug, Forever, pCloud; there are many possibilities. I share my family photos via SmugMug, I keep them locked behind a password, but you can see what it looks like here.
Box up the photos you want to keep in archival boxes and get rid of the rest.
If you would like help with your photos, chat with me today! I can guide you through the sorting process, scan and organize your photos, combine them with your digital library (want to tackle your phone?) and set up the best sharing system for you.