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It's amazing to me when I go into many people's homes to see priceless and precious photographs that give wonderful visual memories but are often the most neglected of items and are crammed into boxes too small or loose and scattered in places all over the house.
Theses days it is easier to maintain photos since most of us use digital cameras and we can upload these easily to our computer and store them there in files. DO I really need to remind you to make sure that you back up all your photo files by copying them to multiple computers, burning the files to a CD or DVD, or using an online backup service like carbonite.com? My husband (who is a truly geeky engineer) tells me that it is INEVITABLE that your hard drive will crash at some point in the future, usually when you can least afford it, so you've been warned! I have a friend who recently spent several hundred dollars to have her photographs retrieved by a professional data retrieval service after her hard drive crashed, so back it up today!
The dilemma is what to do with all those hundreds of old print photographs that have never made their way into albums. You could scan them all in to your computer. You could at least organize them in some way. This is exactly what we are going to do this month.
Have you looked at old photographs and can't for the life of you remember the names of the people in the photo? Frustrating, because if we can't identify them, our children who will no doubt inherit all the photos will not have a clue either. So the photos become meaningless.
Now, if you have years and years of photographs, this is going to take some time, but it will be worthwhile down the road so to speak! So here is your assignment:
Purchase some good archival quality photo boxes, and a photo pen and you are ready! Collect all those loose photographs and unmarked packets of photos. The goal is identify on the back of every photograph the names of the people and/or place. Most photos that have been printed somewhere have the date imprinted already.
Only keep photographs that are good, no point keeping blurry ones or over/underexposed pictures. No one wants to look at them and just because you took the picture doesn't mean that you have to keep it!
If you have photographs in the old albums that had the sticky backing remove them carefully. These over time will, if they have not already, affect the colour of the actual photographs and ruin them.
Next, group photos together by year and event. Some examples would be family vacation 2008, Poppy's 4th birthday party 2008, Whitney's wedding 2008, etc. You get the idea. File these carefully into the photo boxes and voila! - you have them all ready for future reference. Maybe you are going to scrapbook them. If so, this filing system will make it so much easier to do that, or to just find photographs from a particular event.
Keep photographs in a dark, temperature and humidity controlled place. Exposure to light causes damage. Don't store photographs in an attic, basement or garage. Heat and humidity will damage them. Also, don't store them in an area where there could be a water leak.
I recommend that as soon as you pick up a set of photographs you write/date and file them away. For digital photos, enter a descriptive file name or use the file data tags to describe the photo. If you use the "My Pictures" directory in Windows XP or Vista to store your photos, you can enter a lot of data for each photo by right-clicking on it, then choosing "Properties", and selecting the "Summary" tab.
Keep all your print photographs in one place so that in the event of a fire or disaster you can grab them easily.
If you have years and years of loose photographs, this is going to take some time, but time well spent to be sure. Perhaps commit to dealing with one packet each evening. This should not take more than 15 minutes each evening.
Our photographs are what remind of us happy memories and special people in our lives, so treat them with the love they deserve!
Merri |
