Click Away!

Memories aren’t quite as clear with candid shots. Sometimes friends and family don’t even realize we’ve taken the picture until they see it in print or uploaded to Facebook.

What they don’t realize is that we didn’t take “that picture,” we captured the moment.

Some pictures are like a yearbook; they serve a purpose. They record the facts. They are proof of a birthday, a grand opening, a holiday dinner, or graduation. So they serve a purpose and it’s important to take those pictures and record the events of our lives.

But the candid shots…that’s where we live.

In the candid shots of our families we see the laughter, the teasing, the struggle, and the triumph of our lives. The candid shots hold the details of who we are. Simply by capturing these moments, you tell a deeper, more complete story of the members of your family.

So, click away! Capture a moment while the family tries to organize themselves for a group photo. Get the shot of the kids all sitting on the couch playing video games... Snap away and forever record the little moments in between the big events in the lives of your family so future generations will truly know their lineage.

Downsizing Your Parent’s Photos

Back in the day, our parents purchased a roll of film, loaded their cameras, shot the pictures, and had them developed. Then, they would go home and pop the photos into those horrible “glue back” photo albums, but at least they got into an album.

There are two problems with the scenario above:

1. ALL of the photos went into an album, not just the ones that told the story. The blurry ones, bad ones, and the seemingly random photos that don't tell a story are there, too. Many of them are cluttering up the BEST of your family’s memories.

2. More than likely, the photos in the albums are the only ones that exist. This poses a problem because most families have more than one child.

So what are you to do? Below are some suggestions on how to go about downsizing your parents' photos:

• First of all, get the photos out of those “glue back” albums if they are in that type of album. (Keep them in the same order that they were in the album).
• Once each album is empty, go through the photos one at a time. Discard any photo that is blurry, bad, or simply does not tell a story. For example: landscape pictures are usually boring when no human is there to liven it up. GET RID OF THESE PICTURES! If you choose, keep only a few of the best. This process is referred to as the sorting process. We suggest you sort after each album is emptied so that you don’t get too far ahead of yourself. By doing it this way, you can keep control of the large project at hand. We’d like to add, that you can also make piles of photos to give to extended family members and friends. Sometimes, as time passes, it’s easy to let go of those photos.
• Now you have a decision to make. Will your next step be to sort the photos chronologically or by theme? If chronologically, just keep the photos in order and store them in a photo safe box until you are ready to tackle the next album. If by theme, when going through the remaining photos, try to determine in what category the photo belongs. For example: Vacations, Holidays, School Years, Sports, Birthdays, etc… If you have multiple siblings, you may also sort by sibling and then into each of those categories.

• Once you’ve emptied all of the albums, go around the house and collect any lingering photos that might be in drawers, boxes, etc… Go through the same process of sorting and discarding with these pictures as well.

We hope the information above has helped you to devise a process for downsizing your parents' photos. The most important thing is not to feel guilty about throwing away the bad pictures. In our parents' day, they kept every picture they developed. They did not have the luxury of deleting an image right from their cameras.

Good luck! If downsizing your parents photos is something you have a desire to do but not the time, please consider hiring a professional photo organizer  to tackle the project for you.

Downsizing Your Digital Photos

You’ve got your photos off your camera and organized in folders or in your software. Now you’re working on an album, a display, or some photo project. Now is the time to be in the editing stage, when you’re choosing which you’ll include in that project. There’s no sense editing photos you’re not going to use, right? While you’re correcting red eye, cropping, cloning and such, you may as well edit down, or downsize, the number of photos you have.

Downsizing will do two things. Reducing the number of images you have will save space on your hard drive. Deleting from your library will also save time, because you—and all your peeps—will have fewer bad shots to pour through. You can spend your precious time better by enjoying the prize shots, yes? So let’s get to it.

We’ve always found it easier to downsize in retrospect, a while after the event. Or maybe you like to do it as soon as you take the picture and review it. The earlier the better.

Blurry shots: Blurry photos never get less blurry. These aren’t fun for anyone to look at—why make someone dizzy?

Duplicates: How many photos of a battleship do I need? We try to pick out the best one to tell the story, preferably with someone in the shot to give perspective and interest. All other duplicates…delete! 

Bad shots. While you’re looking for the best photos of your event, it’s easy to pick out the ones you don’t want—those with facial expressions askew, eyes closed, heads turned, etc. You’ll want to delete those. It’s like the rule for clutter: look at and put it where it belongs, handling only once. In this case, it belongs in the trash. Exception: The bad shot may have the one good expression of a subject, and you may want to clone that face from the bad shot to the better one. In that case, keep the photo but delete other less-than-stellar shots.

Meaningless shots. In hindsight, you may wonder why you took the picture of that tiny stream. Or the butterfly whose wings you can’t see. Scenic shots are fine, but many lose meaning after the picture was taken. Again, if the photo doesn’t help tell the story of the event, delete.