Backup Archives - Page 2 of 2

Jun 28 2016

Could Your Photos Be at Risk in Your Own Home?

This is a Guest Contribution by Meaghan Kahlo of Ephemera Photo Organizing

Personally valuable photo and family heritage collections may be at risk even in your own home. Although hard to imagine, photos can be at risk for a variety of reasons ranging from the obvious – home fires – to the not so obvious – the actual storage materials and location your photos are in today.

Are Your Photos At Risk?

Consider if your photos are at risk from any of the following:

Fire or Natural Disasters

This is likely the biggest risk many people would face. How quickly could you gather your valuable photos and documents if you had to evacuate due to a house fire, a wildfire, a hurricane, or a tornado? Do you live in an area that experiences floods or earthquakes?

The Elements

Over time the conditions in our homes could detrimentally affect photographic and paper materials. Is your home too damp or too dry? Do you have framed photos in direct sunlight? Are albums stored in front of heater exchanges?

Location

Do you have boxes of photos or albums that you store in the basement, garage, attic or even in an offsite storage unit? These items are at risk from extreme temperature fluctuations and unstable environments that again may be too damp or too dry. While it is tempting to store bulky boxes of photos and albums where we have the space, consider how devastating it would be if your memories were damaged from a flooded basement, or you opened a box stored in the attic to find your memories covered in mouse droppings.

Storage Materials

Even the boxes, folders and albums we store our photos in can pose risks. Materials that are not acid- or lignin-free or proven to be photo-safe can cause damage to paper, photographs and negatives. Sticky magnetic albums will leech acid onto prints via the glue-covered pages. Vinyl binders and envelopes from the processing lab will outgas harmful chemicals. Album pages can become brittle over time and crumble.

Digital Risk Factors

Digital images are at risk too for many reasons. Many people simply have so many digital images they cannot enjoy their photos or find photos when they need them. External hard drives full of photos and video can fail, be broken or stolen. Lost or forgotten passwords to online photo storage vendors result in forgotten and orphaned photos.

Ultimately, the risks posed to our precious family photos and documents could be greatly mitigated by some awareness of what our collections encompass and where we choose to keep them. Personal archivists and photo organizers are knowledgeable guides for protecting your photos from common risks and can help you identify specific risks in your home.

Meaghan Kahlo, owner of Ephemera Photo Organizing in Seattle, WA, began her professional life with graduate work in museum studies focused on collections management. Her enthusiasm for photography and historical preservation combined with a passion to organize and create order are the driving forces behind her business. Meaghan helps clients transform the ephemeral nature of digital and printed images into meaningful photo solutions for loved ones today and for generations to come tomorrow.

Jun 21 2016

It’s Time to Tidy Up Your Photos!

This is a guest contribution from Cathi Nelson, Founder of The Association of Personal Photo Organizers

Most of us don’t want to save the thousands and thousands of photos we take each month. What we really want to save are the ones that matter. Could you quickly find the photos that bring you joy and happiness? Probably not; it simply isn’t possible when you likely took a few hundred in just the past week!

However, think about it. What photos would you choose? The fun family photos of everyone together at the beach on a warm summer night? A photo of your parents when they were young and healthy? Your son’s first birthday party or your daughter walking down the aisle? The list isn’t mysterious because as human beings, we cherish the times we spend with family and friends. We document those moments with our phones and cameras to capture a moment in time that reminds us of all we hold dear.

So what is the problem? With the popularity and affordability of digital cameras and mobile phones, many of us are sitting on a virtual heap of digital images. Combine that with all of those hard copy photos we always meant to stick in an album and suddenly we’re in over our heads.

This is exactly why we have designated September as Save Your Photos Month—it’s time to Tidy Up Your Photos and we are here to help lead the way!

Your first step is to take the pledge to Save Your Photos. It’s your promise to yourself that you will take action during the month of September—and you won’t be alone. You will be joining thousands of others throughout the world who have taken the pledge. Beginning on September 1st, we will send you a daily email with a tip to inspire you and to keep you on schedule. If you can spare even just a few minutes a day, you can join the fun, start to organize, and participate in tidying up your photo collection.

Imagine the sense of relief you will experience when you can easily find the photos that bring you joy.

The Save Your Photos initiative is a public service outreach campaign developed by The Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO) to teach individuals how they can preserve life’s irreplaceable photos, videos and documents in case of unforeseen accident or disaster.

Cathi Nelson

Cathi Nelson founded (APPO) as an answer to the growing need of our digital age – assistance for organizing an influx of digital photo memories, printed photos, media and memorabilia. APPO supports its hundreds of members by offering ongoing training, a supportive community, professional credibility and an annual educational national conference.

Jun 18 2016

Save Your Photos: Save Your Stories

This is a guest post by Bonnie Shay of Mariposa Creative Solutions.

One of my most difficult, yet most rewarding, photo projects was for a divorced couple and their adult children. The divorce was acrimonious and bitter (the husband had had an affair). My job was to help the ex-wife edit the family’s photo and video collection and provide her ex-husband with a copy of everything as required by their divorce decree. Although the family would never be one “unit” again, my goal beyond the divorce decree requirement was to provide each family member with a record of their family’s story as it once was.

Unfortunately, all divorces interrupt the family’s story. I speak with first- hand knowledge since I, too, am divorced. What was once one, is now two separate entities. Plans that were made when a couple was married no longer exist. Life as you knew it is fractured into separate pieces. This is especially true when there is animosity between the divorcing spouses. Oftentimes, looking at their family photo history is the last thing a divorcing couple wants to do.

Nevertheless, the family’s history still exists. The fact that the story has changed, however, should not minimize the significance of the past. It was important to embrace the positive aspects of the photo organizing project. Fortunately, I was able to accomplish this goal with my client. We focused on the gift that each family member would receive at the completion of our efforts. Namely, an external hard drive that was filled with their memories in photos and videos. Luckily, despite the bitter divorce proceedings, we were able to celebrate the family’s story. Although the family would never be “whole” again, each member could acknowledge their past while focusing on moving forward into the next chapter of their lives.

When I was a little girl, my idea of a fun activity was to organize my family’s kitchen pantry, cabinets and drawers. I discovered many years later that it wasn’t every girls’ idea of a good time. Who knew? But it planted the seed of an idea that underlies Mariposa Creative Solutions: that each of us loves and excels at different things and if we recognize that and do what we do best, we can make a difference in other people’s lives.

My clients often say that at the beginning of our work together they feel like some or all of their home is chaotic. The great filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola said, “Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.” And so it goes whether you have built a family, a career, friendships or a beautiful garden, a certain amount of “chaos” has been part of the process while you’ve been living life.

And if you’re reading this, my guess is you’re not like me — one whose passion it is to make order. The important thing for you is to stop feeling bad about that. It’s about recognizing what you’re good at, what you enjoy, and how to relieve that which weighs on you.

Jun 16 2016

It Doesn’t Take a Hurricane

This is a guest contribution from Jan McCallum of Pixels2Pages.

Living in a hurricane zone makes life interesting for several months each year. I remember watching news reports of devastating hurricanes that demolished houses built on beaches or near large bodies of water and thinking “What were they thinking, to want to live THERE? What did they expect?” And now, here I am, living on a tiny island in a house on stilts, seventeen feet in the air, right above a large body of water called Galveston Bay.

Hurricanes are no joke here. In 2008, two years before we moved here, Galveston Island (which is much larger than Tiki Island) was pounded by Ike, which was ‘only’ a Category 2 hurricane, but it was massive and produced the greatest storm surge ever seen with a Category 2 hurricane. Galveston Island is a long, narrow, barrier island – about 30 miles long and only a mile wide at its widest point, and much of the damage done to Galveston happened in addition to the winds and waves in the Gulf of Mexico due to the storm surge coming from the other side – the bay side.

Despite major warnings and mandatory evacuation orders starting days before Ike made landfall, many people didn’t comply. I guess you never think it will happen to you… Along this part of the Texas coast, over 140,000 people did not evacuate, despite the mandatory order to do so. Almost 1,000 people were rescued from rising waters, and nearly 2,000 were rescued after the storm. 84 people lost their lives. Estimates of damage from Hurricane Ike hit 37.6 BILLION dollars, and of course, that figure does not include memories lost, in the form of photographs, albums, slides, videos, documents, letters and more. And even if it did, we know those memories are precious and PRICELESS.

Although our house (which wasn’t ours at the time) survived Ike, I will be among the first to hit the road when the next big storm comes our way. My friends and I have our evacuation plan in place, but it doesn’t include room to take all of the material goods that we value. That is why my Forever account is so important to me! With all of the things I have to worry about when preparing for a major storm, knowing that my digital images are safely stored in multiple places around the country is such a blessing. Important documents have been scanned and saved; my favorite digital images are secure in my Forever albums, and I’m in the process of filling boxes full of non-digital images to be converted and stored in my Forever account. Guess I’d better get that done, now that is is officially hurricane season!

SYPM Anna photo — My friend Anna’s new puppy ate one of her books. Ouch!

You may not live in a hurricane zone, but none of us live in a place where we are immune to natural disasters. Floods, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, hail, lightning strikes, and even things like robberies, computer crashes, and pets can wreak havoc on our photographs, albums, books, and other precious memories. A couple of years ago, I lost three external hard drives in the space of a few weeks. Two just stopped working, while I was in the process of using them, and one dropped about six inches to the table top when I forgot I had it plugged in and picked up my laptop to move it. NONE of the information on those devices could be retrieved, even though I was willing to pay big bucks to try.

Thankfully, the worst thing I lost was a good number of digital scrapbook pages that I created in Artisan, and while that is heartbreaking, it’s not the end of the world. Because I had posted the completed pages on Facebook or on pixels2Pages.net, I have the .jpg images (although not at high resolution) as well as a list of the content I used to create them and the fonts I used. It does mean I have to recreate those pages, though….

SYPM Forever screen — In my Forever account, inside my album of photos of my puppy, Crockett, I have an album of completed pages I’ve done about him.

One of my favorite new features in Artisan 5 is the ‘Share’ button that allows me to upload my completed album pages directly to my Forever account. As soon as I finish a page and proofread it, I save it to my Forever account. In the description of each page, I list contents, fonts, and Blueprints or Challenges used to create it – just in case I want to make changes – but I can always download that .jpg image and print it if needed. Oh, to have had that feature a couple of years ago!

SYPM Crockett page — For each completed page, I list the digital art kits, fonts, and Blueprints or Challenges I used to create that page.

What is your emergency plan for saving your photographs and important documents? Are they all in one place? Could you get to them in a hurry? Would you know they were missing if you were robbed? Are your memories and photos out where you can enjoy them – in books, albums, frames, or otherwise displayed? Locking them in a fireproof safe isn’t the answer, either! Have a look around your house now, and think about the images and pages that are most important to you, and evaluate your current situation. Make a plan to get things the way you want them, and then act on it! Support is only a phone call (1-888-FOREVER) or email away – Forever Ambassadors are happy to help you save your photos!

Jan McCallum

Jan McCallum loves travel, photography, storytelling, food and games – and digital scrapbooking! Jan is the founder of pixAbilities, LLC, and manager of a team of women from around the world who created and operate the www.pixels2Pages.net website. Recently acquired by Forever, Inc., pixels2Pages is proud to be a part of the Forever family and remains committed to helping people celebrate their photos and stories using Forever’s Artisan and Historian software.