I stopped having photos printed a while back, as they were just adding to the clutter in the house. I have 4 photo albums of my life leading up to the digital revolution, but since then I have been avoiding printing any more photos. Well, at least individual pictures, as I do still have some printed, but in a different way.
I have books printed for each year that passes.
As each year ends, I go back through all of the year’s digital photos and pick out a bunch that best represent what happened in the last 12 months. Using iPhoto (there are others, but Apple apps are usually easiest for me), I arrange the photos in a virtual book and then submit it for printing. A short time later, a beautiful book shows up at the house with all my chosen pictures professionally printed inside. It really is pretty cool.
Many will say “but isn’t that adding to the clutter”? Well, yea – kinda. But think of it this way: in the future, these digital pictures we all save might not be viewable by different technology, and some older relatives might not have computers, so having a book is a nice touch. In addition, young kids like flipping through books (for the time being, at least 🙂 ), so picture books of the family can be a fun thing for them to have access to.
The key is to not print every single picture! The advantage of digital photography is that we can take a ton of shots of any and every event, so there are bound to be a few good ones worth saving and putting in the book. A book of the best photos for each year of your or your families’ life is much easier to organize than a bunch of shoeboxes under the bed!
What a great idea! I’m looking for ways to organize my photographs and this is a great way to close out the year or to immortalize a special trip in a format that everyone in our family can appreciate. Thanks!
I think this is a fabulous idea. I feel like digital photos are one of the great storage problems of our time. I completely agree that printing all of your photos adds to the clutter in our homes, but I also think it’s very important to get the photos off your camera/computer and into a tangible format so people can look at them and enjoy them. It’s so easy to lose a few years worth of photos due to a hardware failure.
I do a similar thing with inexpensive photo albums. At the end of the year I go through the photos taken and print a photo or two that best represent each special occasion, each season, etc. I put the prints into inexpensive photo albums ($1) and place those in my daughter’s bookshelves. They both really enjoy looking through the books. We have a lot of conversations about the events and truly enjoy reminiscing together.
“these digital pictures we all save might not be viewable by different technology”
Definitely will not happen. The only we will never be able to open/view/or convert JPEG files is if computers don’t exist in the future.
“Definitely”? That’s a bold statement to make for all of eternity 🙂
lol. of course! Although I guess it would require active management of your pictures in the event you would ever need to convert them to a better/newer format.
There is always the possibility of someone finding your old hard drive in 200 years and not being able to read it 🙂