Organizing Family Photos - Step One

Whether you recently inherited a relative's collection or have simply accumulated a large quantity of your own photo prints or digital image files, the thought of starting a collection organizing project can be very humbling.

The key is to think big picture and just get started. No one says you have to complete the project in a single sitting. It can also help to stay focused on how important your photo collection is to you, and can perhaps be to your descendants.

Step One - Sort and Eliminate

Every photo organizing project, whether paper prints or digital files, can benefit from some thoughtful sorting and culling. It is a rare person who has not saved some really bad photos. Photos are often really hard to toss. However, the truth is that some photos do not deserve the space they take up in the shoebox.

In most cases, we would do well to get rid of the poorest shots of the same event or subject and simply treasure the best ones. With the passage of time, many photos simply lose subject value. Perhaps you want to keep some of the best pictures of your high school friends, but if you have not exchanged xmas cards for thirty years and live on the other side of the country, most can probably go or stay in the shoebox for your children to toss. My family had taken a ton of pictures over the years, and our thoughtful sorting and culling of both prints and digital files about a year ago resulted in eliminating well over half of the collection.

Subsequent steps in the organizing project became much easier, and less costly, with a more manageable number of prints and digital files.

Sorting and culling your collection may be all the motivation you need to keep going. Seeing all the wonderful and important photos remaining in your collection should bring a smile to your face and encourage you to take additional steps in organizing and sharing your collection. You will also have done a big favor to whoever may inherit your collection one day.

In a future blog, I will make suggestions about how to categorize and label both prints and digital files.

For more suggestions on organizing photo collections, visit the Organizing section at LocalArchiver.com