Photo albums store captured moments; histories of lives, families, and cultures; and are great memory triggers. New technology means we have fresh options for the way we store and view our photos.
About two years ago, I realised my bookshelves were groaning with traditional photo albums and that I was having trouble keeping up with printing and filing new photos. I regularly saved digital photos to the computer, but after months of not printing any, I felt I was too far behind to catch up quickly (and didn’t necessarily want to).
Whenever I browse someone else’s photos—or they look at mine—it's nearly always as a slide show on a computer. It reminds me of the childhood fun of asking Mum and Dad to get their slides out for an old-fashioned family slide night.
There are other benefits. Digital photos are easier to share—via email, social media, or on CD (with text and music if you're creative). Old slides and photos can be preserved indefinitely by being scanned into digital form. They can—and should—be backed up so we don’t need to worry about losing them, whether to computer failure, theft, or a natural disaster.
To organise digital photo albums, create folders that mimic the system you use for hard copy albums, such as family, holidays, and events. You can be even more specific in your categories, make your albums as small or as large as you like, and easily move them around whenever you feel like it.
I was pleased to discover that digitising my albums has made it easier to go through my hard copy albums and remove less-than-ideal photos. I hope to reduce the number of albums over time—it’s a good pottering project.
We can also make our digital albums an ongoing decluttering project. Every time you scroll through your photos, delete any you don’t want. Go in and delete ten or so now :) The best photos will stand out when you remove the clutter.
Do you print your photos for albums or keep them only digitally?
