I love looking through photos of my grandparents as young adults and my parents as kids. Photography is definitely in my genes having a grandparent who was a professional photographer. Like most photographers, he had duplicates of the same scenes from different angles.
Now with digital cameras and smart phones, fewer photos are being printed. But there are more photos than ever before, and people complain they are overwhelmed, in part because the delete button or trash icon are not being used often enough. I know good photographers take multiple photos in hopes of getting one amazing photo out of 10 or 100 shots. I don’t take 100 shots, and when it’s a bad photo, I’m not afraid to hit the trash button!
Lately I’ve worked with a number of clients dealing with years of photographs, acquired after the death of a parent or after the childhood house has been cleaned out.
It is overwhelming and easier to stick photos in a box rather than sort into an album but the problem grows until there’s no room in the box. There are many ways to organize photos, no one-sized method for all but I have a few tips to share especially to reduce the pile:
– Choose quality over quantity.
– Keep only those that make you smile or feel good when looking at.
– Toss duplicates, fuzzy/out of focus photos, not flattering images.
– Discard photos of people you don’t know or can’t remember.
Finally, create three piles: Keepers, Debatable, and Trash. Immediately toss the trash pile. Go though the Debatable pile and decide whether to keep or toss. A good rule of thumb: keep only the best one out of ten photos.
I find it less overwhelming to look through a handful of amazing photos over having to sort through hundreds to find hidden gems. An organizer can help with this project as well.