Last week kids went back to school – back to a routine after the relaxed nature of summer holidays. It’s amazing to watch the holiday crowd disappear. We went to Marion Bay at the bottom of the Yorke Peninsula at the end of January and stayed at the local caravan park. Our booking was until Tuesday of last week, and by Monday morning the whole park had literally emptied out. We were the only campers left! Most holidaymakers left on Sunday to get their kids back home and ready for the school year.
Which brings me to the topic of ‘first’ photos. With kids back at school last week, did you notice the influx of ‘first’ photos on your Facebook or Insta feed? First day of kindy, first day of primary school, first day of highschool, first day of the last year of school – and the list goes on! On top of these ‘first’ photos, many school formals take place at the beginning of the year, too – another important occasion in which to capture those precious memories.
These school related events are all such important milestones in the lives of our children and grandchildren and it’s so important to make sure the photos that we take are not only shared on social media, but also preserved properly to ensure their longevity. We don’t want to simply lose them in the thousands of photos that are stored on our camera roll.
With my own photo collection, I know that my daughters’ first day of school photos – now many years ago – are easily accessible. I’ve used them in projects such as graduation books, yearbooks and for significant birthdays etc. There are many ways to keep tabs on these special photos. For Apple users, you might create folders and albums and ‘file’ the photos accordingly. You can also add keywords in the Apple system, as well as other photo ecosystems such as Google Photos. Besides Apple and Google Photos, there are other great software options available to organise photos. Personally, I use Lightroom Classic and my organising regime includes adding keywords which make my photos very searchable. In the various organising software options available, you can also add captions to special photos which will tell the story of, for example, your child’s first day of school.
But before doing any of this work, it’s a great idea to go through the photos that you’ve taken – and I’m sure there will be many – and delete the ones you don’t need. Delete the ‘similar’ photos, the blurry photos, or the ones where the subject has their eyes closed. This will help to ‘declutter’ your camera roll so that you’re only dealing with the photos that you’d like to keep.
Besides sharing on social media, I always encourage clients to share their photos in other ways – even if it’s to get them printed and stick them on the fridge. Kids love seeing photos of themselves in printed form – whatever it may be.
All the above also applies to the mountain of holiday photos that you may have taken too – photos of family on Christmas Day and holidays by the beach. These precious memories are so important and tell the story of your family. I always encourage people to do a photo book or slideshow of holidays – these projects are a great way to relive those holiday memories for years to come!
Lastly, I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a backup of your precious photos. The recommendation for backing up is three copies of your photos, on at least two different types of devices – one of which is stored offsite. Only having one copy of your photos sitting on your phone is a recipe for disaster.
Hopefully I’ve given you a few ideas and some direction in dealing with important photos that may have been taken last week, or during the holidays. Don’t let your precious memories simply disappear into the digital wilderness.