Organizing our digital photos

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One of my goals for 2013 was "to organize our digital lives, especially our photos, and make use of the pictures we take." And I'm happy to report that I'm making significant progress!

In terms of organizing our digital lives, one challenge we faced is having multiple computers across which our digital pictures and files exist. We also weren't backing any of this up consistently. Eeek!

So, earlier this year we invested in an Apple AirPort Time Capsule with 3 terbytes of storage. (One day, likely sooner than I think, I'll look back at this and be astonished that I thought 3 TB was an amazing amount of storage. Technology is crazy and amazing. End tangent.) Time Capsule automatically and wirelessly backs up all the computers in our house. Exhale sigh of relief.

I've also come up with an approach for organizing and making use of the many, many pictures that we're snapping of Dash. For Dashiell's first year I'm creating two photo books: one for birth through six months and one for six months through one year. After that I will create yearly Team Wharton family albums. My plan is to download the photos from my phone every month-ish and save a few favorites to a folder for the yearly albums. I'll also add any favorite photos taken with my DSLR to the folder. Then when I sit down to make the Team Wharton annual photo book I won't have to wade through an entire year's worth of photos.

Tomorrow I'll share the details of Dash's first photo book, it turned out so great!

8 responses to “Organizing our digital photos”

  1. Erica Ladd Avatar
    Erica Ladd

    You are my organizational inspiration. I love this idea, and can’t wait to see that book. Open it!

    Reply
    1. Kelsey Avatar
      Kelsey

      Haha, all will be revealed tomorrow!

      Reply
  2. Kristy Avatar
    Kristy

    I so LOVE the idea of family albums rather than an individual album after year 1. I hadn’t even considered that and was stressing about doing individual albums for each of our kids. Especially since we have so many photos of the oldest alone as he was an only for 3 years and after about year 1 with N, we have mostly photos of the boys together.

    Reply
    1. Kelsey Avatar
      Kelsey

      Oh yes, family albums for sure! Its so wonderful with the digital services it would be so easy to get one printed for each child so that they can have their own copy when they get older if you wish. I agree that trying to keep up with multiply albums would be overwhelming, just getting one done a year would be an accomplishment in my book!

      Reply
  3. Kristy Avatar
    Kristy

    I’m almost 6 years behind in the photo album department! Catching up is definitely on my goals list for 2014. Looking forward to the details on Dash’s first photo book!

    Reply
    1. Kelsey Avatar
      Kelsey

      You can do it! Digital photos are wonderful but man they can be overwhelming too! 

      Reply
  4. Brittany Avatar
    Brittany

    This is seriously something I need to start doing. (It was a new years resolution that never really got started. Yikes.)

    Do you organize with each import or sit down once a month to sort out your favorites?

    Reply
    1. Kelsey Avatar
      Kelsey

      It’s never too late to start a new year’s resolution! I don’t have a solid system yet but I do prefer going through a download right then and at least deleting photos I don’t want. Then it’s easier to pick favorites later. But I think ideally I would pick favorites right away and put them into a folder and delete everything else. It’s one of those tasks that feels so overwhelming to start but you kind of get in a groove once you start, you can do it!

      Reply

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