by Tanya Teat Foreman | Sep 23, 2022 | Save Your Photos Month
Family Photos Have Life After Death
Last week’s blog post talked about digital photos vs. printed photos but for our final week of Save Your Photos Month, we will plan for the inevitable, death. Parents buy life insurance to pay for their funerals or to make life comfortable for their children. We make a will to distributethe important things in our lives between the ones we love, equally and fairly. We try to take care of our final arrangements, making sure those in charge know what to do. What about the family photo albums, memorabilia and digital pictures after our death? WHAT?!?! You never thought about this? Well, it’s time!
“By Failing to Prepare, You Prepare to Fail”
A very important quote from Benjamin Franklin that can be parlayed into many things in life. If you are the family historian (like me), it is important to make a plan after your demise. Is there someone in the younger generation that will take up the cause? Does someone in the family show an interest in continuing the family research? Is there anyone who cares at all?? That’s what you need to find out NOW. Seek out the current family historian at the next family reunion. Make sure they know your interests in taking over after they have gone. Talk to your children to see who might take on this task because making a plan is the first and most important step. Also make sure your family photos will be passed on after your death.
Make a Plan
If your Auntie/Grandpa/Mom/Dad agree to pass the family history torch to you, make sure they state it CLEARLY in their wills. Please make sure they let their heirs know NOW! We do not want surprises when the end comes and you try to retrieve unsuccessfully what you’ve been promised. I would highly recommend that you ask your relatives to pass it down to you NOW.
Also, have them go through the album with you. Have them tell you stories of the family members in the pictures (make sure you record it as oral history so you can write it down later). Additionally, make sure they go through their phones and computers to transfer any photos they might have stashed there. Encourage them to upload to a cloud service like Google Photos, Dropbox, shared drive, etc. If they are willing, ask them to share the username and passwords with you so you have access to it at all times.
Be Creative
Since natural disasters happen (seems like more often lately), scan all family photo albums and take pictures of any family memorabilia so you will have a digital copy. Upload this to a cloud service just in case. Last but definitely not least, create a book from the photo albums, memorabilia, newspaper articles, etc. for the next family reunion or to pass along after you! Make sure you include everything about yourself – the good, the bad and the ugly – so they know who you truly are. Include your immediate family and their adventures and mishaps. It’s the best gift you can give your future descendants and continue the family forward.
Next month is Family History Month! I am determined to make family historians out of EVERYONE! I’ve got some great stuff to share so stay tuned.
Peace, Love and Genealogy
by Tanya Teat Foreman | Sep 18, 2022 | Save Your Photos Month
Photos of the Future
Last week’s blog discussed decluttering photos on our phones. This rolls into this week’s blog of digital photos. The current generation is technology savvy and believe and love anything digital. So where does that leave us old school printed photo people? Are we considered relics because we have several boxes of printed photos? What should we do with the photo albums passed down through the generations? Should we only have digital photos. There is a way to live in both worlds.
Scrapbook Queen
I confess…I’m a scrapbooker! It is a creative obsession I’ve had since I was young (I am 53). Imagine lots of pretty paper, glitter and tchotchkes all over my spare bedroom in my house. Therefore, printed photos are important to me. However, scrapbooking has even moved away from paper and embellishments and has turned to digital scrapbooking (not fun for me). I refuse to adjust! My daughters use social media as their scrapbooks, uploading pictures into albums and deleting them from their phones to save memory. Which method is correct?
Digital vs. Printed
There are several pros and cons for each:
- Digital photos require no physical space. The only space it needs is memory on an external hard drive, a laptop, on your phone or a cloud service. Printed photos and scrapbooks require real estate – on a bookcase (like at my mom’s house), on a closet shelf (in my house) or a corner somewhere in the house.
- What happens when technology is upgraded? Do you have to worry about transferring all your digital photos to a new hard drive? What if your laptop crashes or a cloud service shuts down? You will still have your photo albums, printed photos and scrapbooks.
- Both have an expense attached. Digital photos require hardware (or cloud service. There is a max to the free memory for Google, iCloud or Dropbox. Digital images take up A LOT of memory so thousands of photos will eventually max out and you will need to pay for additional memory to save your photos.
- Natural disasters affect both digital and printed photos. A fire, accidental spill or lost/stolen equipment happen so understanding how to protect your photos (syncing your phone to your laptop/tablet, having a fire safe, keeping liquids away from electronic equipment and photos) is very important.
Make sure you preserve your photos for future generation so they know who you are and what you look like. By the way, The Photo Managers events for Save Your Photos Month are great!
by Tanya Teat Foreman | Sep 12, 2022 | Save Your Photos Month
For last week’s blog, I organized all my photo boxes which was great! This week, I’ve moved on to organize the pictures on my phone! Smartphones make taking pictures easier than ever. Before them, I had to make a conscience decision to lug my bulky 35mm camera with me to different events. For the times I didn’t realize that I needed a camera, I would run to a store to buy a disposable one. Now, it’s a no brainer – if I have my phone with me, I instantly have a camera as well!
Although the smartphone is great for these impromptu photographic moments, there are issues that come with the digital world. The biggest issue – my photos is stay on my phone! Of course, they get shared on social media. My problem becomes Grandma or my Aunt who aren’t tech savvy. They deserve pictures too! Then there’s the memory issue – photos take up a lot of memory which slows down the other apps. What do we do about this? I scheduled some uninterrupted time to go through my entire photo album. I utilized the process of Delete, Organize, Print, Backup and Share.
Delete Some Pictures
I take about three to five pictures of the same subject, hoping to get the best lighting, pretty scenery or the right facial expression. The problem is I forget to delete the duplicates from my phone. I went through the all photos on my phone to delete all the duplicates, blurry and horribly bad pictures.
Organize
I sorted my pictures into albums based on the event or occasion. As I created albums, I took some time to edit my photos, I cropped images, changed some to black and white, and created some memes!
Print
I love scrapbooking and sending photos to family members and friends. To make sure I captured all the pictures I wanted to print, I created a “To Be Printed” album on my phone. I uploaded photos to my favorite place that prints pictures…Walgreens! I love the Walgreens app and uploading my pictures are easy plus they have sales on printing services! I have used CVS and Walmart to print pictures. A bonus: some services will store your photos indefinitely!
Backup
I downloaded my photos from my phone to my computer, just in case I lose my phone or drop it in water (which I did a long time ago). If you don’t like the download options, you can also upload it to a cloud service like Google Photos, Dropbox, OneDrive or iCloud.
Share Your Pictures
Just like I mailed the hard copy duplicates I had in my photo boxes, I texted and emailed some photos from my phone to family and friends. It started a “conversation” and let people know that I love them and was thinking about them which was a bonus all around.
by Tanya Teat Foreman | Sep 5, 2022 | Save Your Photos Month
Importance of Photos
Photos are important to genealogists and family historians. We work long hours organizing, researching, and archiving family stories, documents and pictures for future generations to enjoy. We keep the printed and digital photos for our future family members will know who we were. September is dedicated to teaching families to organize, preserve, share and celebrate their photo & video memories.
Preserving Photos – There’s a Month for That!
Save your Photos Month is really a THING and it was first observed in 2014 by the Association of Personal Photos Organizers, now known as The Photo Managers. Every September, photo retailers and organizers come together online or through social media to raise awareness and inform people of the advantages of keeping their pictures.
This year’s theme is “Do You Know?” which made me think…do I know the proper way to save my pictures? I have scrapbooked for years and have MANY photo boxes stored in the top of my closet. As a Generarion X-er, I got my rolls of film developed at the local Kmart or supermarket. Sometimes, I got free duplicates which should have inspired me to share with family and friends. However, I usually did not because I forgot (in hindsight, that was a bad idea). Putting theory into practice, I decided to make a game plan. I knew I had 30 days.
Taking all the boxes off the shelf of my closet, I put them in the center of the room. I opened up the first box – pictures of my daughters. They were so cute and so small! These pictures were at least 17 years old! SQUIRREL! I had to focus! Lawd…this was not going to be easy!
Started from the bottom now we’re here!
September 1st was my start date. Each photo box was organized by date and event/occasion. The file cards that came in the photo boxes were helpful – I didn’t have to write on the back of each picture. I separate out all the duplicates (there were lots) and grabbed a box of envelopes to mail the duplicates to the people. I’m sure they will appreciate the pictures, the accompanying note and the trip down memory lane. After organizing each box, I labeled each box with a date range and put the corresponding dated pictures in each box.
Just to make sure I was doing this all correctly, I did some online research and registered for a few free classes from The Photo Managers to get me through this process. Expert instructors will share their expertise in mini-classes, tutorials, and live discussions. They have a Facebook group too (I love a community)! Classes include tips on preserving your family history, choosing the best scanner, insider tips on Apple Photos, and more! I’m looking forward to my first class. I’ll keep you posted.
