Every person has a story to tell and a family legacy to share. Marianne Behler of Lifetime Photo Solutions believes every person (children especially) should have a book to hold that tells how important they are, their history with pictures and stories of their life.
Family Legacy: Who Gets the Pictures? Who Tells the Stories?
Every person has a story to tell and a family legacy to share. Every person (children especially) should have a book to hold that tells how important they are, their history with pictures and stories of their life.
Have your heard the saying, “It’s never urgent until it’s too late?” I encourage people to take the steps needed to preserve their pictures and tell their stories before it’s too late. Our pictures, our story, impacts the lives of others: the people who care about us, our children, our family and future generations. There is a window of opportunity to get this done. This window is before we get ready to move into a retirement facility. Definitely before we start needing assistance from others.
I recently assisted two families in creating their family history books. Both almost missed that window of opportunity. One person developed Dementia during the process which led to Alzheimer’s. She started exhibiting signs of memory loss when we were working to identify the people and to record the stories of her life. The other, a gentleman who lived to see is book completed, died just three weeks later from an advanced stage of Parkinson’s.
Getting started means creating a plan to guide you through the process.
Start Now and Allow Time
A collection of pictures and stories that spans several generations will take time to assess and curate (organize and digitize). A collection may include both printed and digital photos, photo albums, framed photos, photo books, movies and more.
Create a Vision and a Plan
Envision completion. A Photo Organizer will assist you in all phases of planning and completing a Legacy photo book, a slide show, celebration poster boards and digital storage systems that will allow you to keep your memories while eliminating the clutter.
Involve Your Family
Who wants your photos? Many families decide to create a photo book with copies for each of their children and grandchildren as a gift to celebrate milestone events: weddings, anniversaries, retirement and/or significant birthdays.
Keep the Memories, Not the Clutter
A DVD can be created of your BEST photos. Celebration of life posters, canvas prints, and important photos [framed] can become your wall art for you to share and for everyone to see. Photos taken of your collections and significant treasured possessions can be incorporated.
Hire a Professional
A professional brings energy, is not overwhelmed, is objective and can assist you in making decisions about each picture, each piece of memorabilia and the telling of your story. Create a budget to complete your project. If you have a 50-year collection of photos and accompanying items, it will take time consisting of several stages of work for a photo organizer to complete your project. Find a photo organizer near you at APPO.org.
Would you like to tell your story and leave your legacy? #saveyourphotos Click To TweetLeaving A Family Legacy
After giving a presentation at a local retirement facility, a woman approached me saying that she wanted to have a legacy photo book completed of her most important pictures, stories and her family treasures. She was widowed, did not have children to leave her pictures and stories to, but wanted to complete it for herself and her family. We took pictures of her significant family treasures and featured both the pictures and stories in her book.
Here are two pages from her Family Legacy book:
Would you like to tell your story and leave your legacy for your children, grandchildren and future generations? Please consider getting started today. This could be the most important gift that you can give your family.
“Photos will only keep your memories alive when they have been arranged so that you can enjoy them whenever you like.” – Filing Fairies
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We also invite you to visit our sister blog The Photo Organizers for more tips and in-depth knowledge from some of the top photo organizing industry professionals. To find a photo organizer near you, visit the Association of Personal Photo Organizers.
Marianne Behler of Lifetime Photo Solutions resides in Jackson, Michigan. Lifetime Photo Solutions specializes in helping people with a lifetime of photos get organized, digitize their collection and create legacy photo books.