Organizing photos
This world consists of two kinds of people: those who organize their photos into a photo album (conventional album or on the computer) and those who don’t. I am somewhere in between: my noble goal of ‘albumizing over thirty years of photos several years ago was abandoned within a week due to the sheer enormity of the task and uncertainty that all the photos that needed to be organized were at hand, however I do something that not many of my friends do: I print selected digital camera pictures and attempt to encase them in a photo album as soon as possible.
No matter the scope of the task you are tackling, here are some ways to get it done that won’t leave you surrounded by envelopes full of photos and fists full of your own hair from tearing it out.
Reduce excess packaging
Here, developed photographs come in an envelope, and this envelope is put into a larger one. This large outer envelope has information about what you ordered and the date you dropped off the film or digital pictures to be printed, but is largely useless, unless you develop your pictures the same day you take them: then the outer envelope would be a reminder of when the photos were taken. If you can live without it, get rid of the outer envelope.
Label everything
Label each envelope with the date(s) and occasions that take place within. If you can’t remember the exact date of the event the photos are capturing, put the month and year down, or even the season and year.
Box it
If you like photo boxes, you can put your envelopes, each labelled on the front with the date and occasion within, into a photo box chronologically. I strongly recommend chronological order because photographs capture memories and when you consider a memory, you usually think of when and where an event happened. If the pictures are in a logical order, finding them or filing them will make more sense. You may prefer to remove the pictures from their envelope, but don’t forget to divide each new group of pictures with an index card for easy searching later. Of course you’ll need to label the box at the end so you know what months/years are within.
Book it
And by book it, I mean get those pictures into an album. I prefer albums over photo boxes because of the way they protect photographs that will be handled–the clear plastic photo holders keep someone from smudging or spilling something on your photographs and the rigid structure of the book allows its creator some power over how the photos are experienced.
A final important note is to get your photographs organized as soon as possible, while the old memory can still recall what year the picture was taken in. Trust me on this one.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Yep. I took on this task a couple years ago: I went through all of my family’s photos from my birth on. They were scattered throughout the house in various drawers. I think there were over fifteen hundred photos.
I have an excellent memory, and I was fortunate here. I was able to determine what age I was in each photo by the outfit I wore iin it. The ones from when I was an infant/toddler were a little trickier as I don’t recall the outfits I wore back then.
Ultimately, I am now obsessed with getting photos into albums ASAP. I never want to take on that task AGAIN!
August 29th, 2007 at 2:23 am
I took on the same task as Amanda not long ago. We had photos all over the place. We started to try sort the “kids” of the family out - getting all our own photos. Mostly prompted by most of us having our 21sts, looking for photos for the party displays etc. Family/group photos have stayed in frames and albums.
I’ve found some of it largely impossible! I just can’t tell how old I am in some of them, and the older photos were developed with no date/information on the back, like newer ones do.
I have to buy a whole bunch of new photo albums too, there’s FAR too many photos. Can’t wait to have them all sorted and in albums once and for all!
LESSON LEARNED: “Label everything” - as you’ve mentioned