Where are your photos hiding?

by Susan Berland

Photo Overwhelm

Are your digital and/or printed photos playing hide and seek and winning? That is, you know where they’re supposed to be but you can’t find the one (or more) you’re looking for when you want it? Maybe you’ve even given up looking because you don’t even know where to start!

You are not alone! So many of us are playing the same game and have given up. We are so overwhelmed and don’t know where or how to start that we’ve thrown up our hands and given up. We don’t even want to think about it. Many have even stopped taking photos.

There is a solution and it starts with sorting and organizing. Where do you begin? Start simply. Pick up a stack of photos and start putting them into piles. The piles will be created based on themes that make sense to you, such as holidays, vacations, people. Think about what photo albums you might want to create when thinking about themes. As you begin to sort, look at each photo. Only put the very best photos in the piles, the ones that would go into an album. Create a separate pile for those photos that don’t need to go into an album but you want to hold onto for sentimental reasons. Throw out the rest – the ones that are out of focus, where you don’t know who is in them or where it is. Really – throw them out! 🙂

The same exercise can be done with your digital photos. Use digital organizing software that allows you to tag your photos and put them into folders based on themes as indicated above. When you want to find your photos, you’ll know where to look.

Susan Berland’s passion is working with gay and lesbian families; helping helping them tell their family stories.