Managing photos

With 15 years of marriage under our belts and a recent victory in the battle of breast cancer, my husband and I decided to renew our wedding vows. It was a lovely ceremony full of love and emotion. With the professional photographer snapping away, we re-committed ourselves to a life together.

A few days after the ceremony, we sat down to look at all the photos taken. There were so many amazing shots and we wanted them all. But after the initial glee of reliving the ceremony through photos wore off, we realized something……we pretty much never look at the photos taken 15 years ago – the first time we said “I do.”

15 years ago we spent a large chunk of our wedding budget on photography. I love pictures and that was one of my priorities. But all these years later, the photos have hardly been looked at and only a few are actually in frames on my wall.

Pictures are hard to walk away from. They are a moment captured and a memory to hold onto. But they only offer you this gift if they are looked at and remembered. A photo means little to someone who doesn’t know the story behind it or the people in it. So read on for a few tips to keep photographs under control:

When organizing pictures, first and foremost, think minimally. You attend your children’s soccer game and take 50 photos. When you download them, immediately go through them with a logical mind. Immediately delete the ones that just aren’t any good. Then delete the ones that look a lot alike. Your goal is to get down to only the ones that are absolutely the best. Your child will not want 50 photos times every soccer game they were ever in to have to manage one day.

Once you narrowed them down, make sure you put them in their own folder and label it. These photos will mean so much more to your child someday if they can remember the who, what, where, and when of it all.

While scrapbooks are a lovely way to preserve memories, keep them to a minimum. Our children’s generation knows only one thing – digital. Scrapbook only the most special occasions and leave the rest on CD’s. Also consider digital scrapbooks.

Photos are like everything else. Too many of them or not having them neatly organized can make it overwhelming instead of enjoyable.



Meagan Farrell, professional organizer, is the owner of Clear the Clutter organizing services. She can be reached at (360) 631-7268 or at clear_theclutter@yahoo.com. Check out her blog at http://cleartheclutterprofessionalorganizing.blogspot.com/