This is a guest contribution by Personal Photo Organizer Nancy Keegan

There is FOMO – Fear of Missing Out – and FOBO – Fear of Better Offers – and lots of other phobias that don’t have such clever acronyms. Sometimes I have FOGS – Fear of Getting Started – and perhaps you do as well. I know that as I am making progress in getting my photos and images safe and organized (is it ever really complete?) I also want to get them into my life and that of my family. One way to do that is to make photo albums.

You don’t have to use the same approach for a lifetime of photos and stories. While some people might have a series of albums that cover a year or few years of their family story, that prospect is daunting if you haven’t kept up. Sometimes the best thing is just to jump in and do one album.

Photo Albums

A few of my favorite albums were prompted by special occasions:

An ABC Album

Each letter of the alphabet had a double-page spread in an album I made for my elementary-school-teacher husband’s 50th birthday.  Every person, place, interest and event in our family experience up to that time is depicted under its appropriate letter. An ABC book, especially one for a child, might have just one or two things shown per letter.  I’ve seen books where a character trait of the recipient serves as the title of each page.

Vacations

Some special vacations warrant a book of their own. Even a special weekend could be remembered with its own small softcover photobook. I’ve also done a big album of all family vacations, each trip covered on two or more pages.

The Kids

We probably take more photos of our children – their sweet faces and their events and milestones – than just about anything else. I confess to having dropped the ball on keeping up with albums through the years when my kids were young. Several years ago, I heard of an idea from a former memory-keeping colleague, Missy Tidwell, and I am actually still working on the “Toddler to Teen” album for each of my now-grown kids. Each holiday or event gets a double-page spread. So you have one spread with photos of the first day of school through the years, another for all birthdays, all Halloweens, little league, big snow storms, and so on. Include whatever events and traditions are significant in your family.

A Heritage Photobook

My husband had collected photos of ancestors and he asked me to help him pull the story together in a photobook. Gathering the information was kind of like doing a jigsaw puzzle with no borders, but it is so much fun to have it all in one place. He took delight in presenting the finished product to his siblings, and now they each have their own copy of the book.

Hobby or Collection

One of my favorite books is called “The Stories in the Squares.” I was given a delightful friendship quilt as a wedding gift, but I recently realized that I was the only one who knew the significance of each block. I photographed each square individually and wrote something that told about the creator, their relationship to me and the explanation of what was depicted in their square. The final product actually became the story of my life and friendships up through the time of my wedding. Maybe you don’t have a quilt, but perhaps you have a special collection or a hobby that you would like to document for posterity!

A Love Letter

I had missed the occasion of our 25^th wedding anniversary, but I wanted to do something special, so I made an album for the next Valentine’s Day. Some ideas would be to use photos from every year; or a special song or poem as a theme. I simply used pairs of photos on pages entitled things like “love and marriage” “hearts and flowers” “friends and family” “cake and ice cream” (for birthday celebrations!) It was a very, very simple book. He loved it.

What kind of album?

One big decision is whether to make traditional albums using print photos, or just go directly to a photobook with your digital images. Again, you don’t have to take the same approach with every album. I confess to being partial to photobooks for several reasons. They take up less space; additional (or replacement) copies can be ordered; I love varying the sizes of the images and the number of images on a page; and I simply prefer working in that medium.

Whichever type you choose, be sure to include writing to document the who, what, where, when and even how everyone was feeling about the events you cover.

The poignant last line of the hit musical Hamilton is “who tells your story?” Will you use photo albums to help tell your story and the stories of those close to you?

Nancy Keegan is a member of APPO, the Association of Personal Photo Organizers. Her favorite way to help people is creating custom photobooks. She has made albums for milestone birthday celebrations including folks turning 90 and 98; and she particularly enjoys designing wedding photobooks.
This photo shows Nancy with her daughter during their trip to NYC last winter. Yes, they did see Hamilton!

You can reach Nancy at her APPO website here.

This is a guest contribution by Joan Gingras of Joan’s Shoebox Memories

The importance of labeling photographs:

It all started in 2006.  My parent’s 60th anniversary was quickly approaching and my sister and I wanted to make something special for their party.  We began our quest for pictures of their early years to make a collage for their memory table.  It soon turned into something much larger as we began discovering more and more pictures tucked into shoe boxes, albums that were quickly disintegrating, and an old metal box from my grandmother’s attic!  I felt like we had hit the jackpot!  Thus began my passion with old family photographs.

The problem was that we had a treasure trove of pictures, but we were not able to identify some of the people.  As I showed them to my parents, they really enjoyed the memories that came flooding back to them: The picture of the night that Dad had proposed to Mom at Cameron Park;

Dad in his Navy uniform; their high school basketball and football pictures, etc.  My mother had interesting stories about some of the pictures. She remembered for them to play on the basketball team they had to make their own uniforms in the homemaking class.  (I never would have made the team!)

Several years went by and I found a picture of some of the children at my father’s little one-room schoolhouse he attended as a boy, and this is where my heartache began.  The picture was of 9 elementary age boys and girls.

By the time I found this, my father was 87.  His memory was fading and he could only remember a few of the names.  I called my uncle and told him about the picture and he said that he remembered seeing that picture long ago and knew all of the names.  I was so excited!  I live out of town and I would come to see them every weekend.  My uncle’s vision was very bad and in order for him to see it clearly I had to enlarge it.  I kept putting that off.  Once I got the enlargement I kept forgetting to take it with me.  Somehow I took for granted that my father and uncle would always be there to help me.

One weekend I went to visit my father in the nursing home and he wasn’t doing well.  He ended up passing away that weekend.  We were all heartbroken.  At that time I accepted that my uncle may not be there forever either.  But in the hustle and bustle of funeral arrangements, I totally forgot about the picture.  I promised myself that the next time I went to see him I would bring the picture.  As it turned out, the next time I saw him was a couple weeks later, under not so good circumstances.  My cousin had called to tell me that he was going to have heart surgery, so we rushed to see him.  Of course, I had not brought the picture.  I was so confident that the surgery would be a success that I told him that when he came home from the hospital he could help me with the picture.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  He never woke up.  I mourned for my father, I mourned for my uncle, and I mourned for the memories that died along with them.

I share this story with my clients so that they understand the importance of labeling photographs.  I recommend labeling photos with names and dates (if known), and to jot down a little info about each.  Your grandchildren who later look at these pictures may not know who “Grangy and Mimi” are in their family tree.  Procrastination crushed me.  Don’t let it crush you, either.

I’m a “native Texan” and we currently live in Georgetown, just north of Austin, TX.  I’ve been married to my husband, Santa Phil, for 33 years.  We have two sons in their early 20s.  When they were growing up we were involved in scouting, sports, and band.  Needless to say I was drowning in pictures!  As the years went by, I became overwhelmed with photos and that’s when I decided to become a photo organizer because I know many people in the same situation as I am.  I also enjoy family history and I am fascinated by old family photographs and want to preserve as many of them as I can find.

You can reach Joan at Joan’s Shoebox Memories.

This is a guest contribution by Pepper Mintz of Get It Done Photo Solutions

How I am Capturing Our Digital Memories

We are the very model of the modern, digital family (to take from the Gilbert & Sullivan patter song). Husband and I are from the tail-end of the boomer generation, our daughters are millenials. Daughter #1 lives in Australia and Daughter #2 lives in the same city as we do. Thus far, it’s the four of us.

It’s a joy to share stories, discussions, observations and experiences with our daughters. Much of that sharing happens digitally – on social media, via Skype or Facetime, texts and photo sharing sites. We have a secret group on Facebook – just the 4 of us. On it we share personal updates we don’t want to make public, articles to read that one or all 4 of us will find relevant, references to discussions we’ve had.

Social media is all about sharing. I enjoy social media because I like to connect, I like to hear about other’s experiences and stay in touch with friends all over the world. I enjoy quirky humour and quotes beautifully displayed.

Recently, it occurred to me – those things that we are sharing, all that digital memorabilia, describe our today – our 2016. How do I capture that sharing to make it part of our story? When creating family scrapbooks, I included pieces of memorabilia – tickets, brochures, artwork – that would add depth to the stories told by the photos. I did the same when I transitioned to photobooks – paper items are scanned and made part of the story of a trip or celebration.

The solution had to be simple and easy to do – see something, collect it, capture it. Here’s what I do:

1. Collect It. This is my digital pile of stuff. It’s not as pretty as letters tied up with a pretty ribbon but it makes it easy on a day-to-day basis. I use a note-taking, organizing app – I have a notebook called Family Albums and a note for 2016. In that note, I capture the things I want to remember – events, thoughts, screenshots, whatever. Because I usually have my phone or tablet nearby, this keeps it simple. (the app I use is Evernote)
2. Create It. Just as memorabilia got glued into albums, the digital memorabilia goes in our yearly photobooks, which I make using scrapbooking software. I prefer a desktop program as opposed to an online design option because, while it gives me the ease of using simple, get it done templates, it has flexibility to alter the page designs and most importantly, all the work and draft pages are kept in my possession on my own computer. (The software I use is Artisan)
3. I title the pages “Our Chatter” and put in the dates. Using a grid pattern of 3 columns, I plop in the photos, screenshots, quotes and stories. I can place editorial or explanatory comments on top of Facebook posts. It is often a hodge-podge collection and I like that it reflects us, what we are doing and what we are sharing.

I got inspiration for this idea from around the web – the paper-based Bullet Journal, the Smash Journal, page layouts using screenshots and the Project Life inspired ideas.

Our theme here is to Save Your Photos and I believe our photos need stories to help us save our memories, our experiences, our life.  This is Us Today.

Pepper Mintz is the owner of Get It Done Photo Solutions.

Her interest in organization began early with her decision to become a Logistics Officer with the Canadian Air Force. She is a Certified Photo Organizer and member of the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO). She has extensive experience in the organization and curation of both printed and digital photo collections. She collaborates with clients to expertly design high quality, premium photobooks and albums that reflect the style and choices of the client.

“At Get It Done Photo Solutions, we believe in the power and importance of the photographs. Our stories tell the story of us.”