Monday, May 12, 2008

Mammoth Job!

Chapter 1

You know when you start a big job you have been putting off for years and you get half way through and you think to yourself.....I know now why I haven't done this before now! Well that's how I felt last week. OK to go backwards to go forwards.....a while back I purchased Stacey Julian's new book called Photo Freedom. I did as she suggested and read the entire book before deciding on what elements of her amazing photo filing system I wanted to use for my own. The first task at hand was to sort through all my family photos and put them into some sort of date order. Here is a photo of just 1/2 a table I was using to do this one "small" task.

After just a few days I knew this was not going to be something I could achieve in a day - I think the photos sat on my tables for about 10 days. Steve was asking me "when were they going to be done" and the kids also contributed with comments like - "Haven't you finished yet?" I just ignored them, this was something that was now bugging me too.

Anyway - about a year ago I purchased some Cropper Hopper Photo Storage boxes and have used these to chronolgically file all my 6x4 photos. Once I started it was obvious the year we got our digital camera because we had at least 5 times the amount of photos printed that year to any other. Then they taper off as we realised that we could print just the ones we wanted and store the others digitally (more on this issue later). Here are the boxes with sticky notes for the years and the events that happened in that year (this made my job a little easier).

One last step in this process was to bin doubles and anything that I didn't want to keep and boy did I have to be ruthless! I filled a Beer carton box as you can see......

I have also started a Memorabilia box with postcards, letters, brochures etc - but I am still deciding on which box to go with for this.

So where am I now? Well I have them filed in year order and I just need to get some nice dividers made with cute little labels - they have to look good too you know!

Next step is to sort out my digital filing of my photos and for this I have bought a 750gb external hard drive - this needs some more thought as to the way I file my photos and I might even check out some tagging software so that I can find photos more easily - If you have any suggestions then please let me know what works for you!

I now have a checklist set up for all the steps I need to take to get this sysetm operating and working for me. If you have done this yourself then I would love to hear if it has been a success and what elements you have decided on?

Chapter 2 to come......soon I hope......

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Happy Mother's Day to one and all for yesterday! Here is where we spent the morning -

Whiteman Park - We had a BBQ breakfast with friends and the kids had a great time running around with soccer balls and discs (Frisbees). We had a few showers but when the sun came out boy was it hot! Home in the afternoon for a siesta and Steve made pizzas for tea......All in all a great day! I hope you had a wonderful day too?
Enjoy your week and this fantastic Autumn weather we are having if you are in Perth!
Cheers!

5 comments:

Alli said...

I am so bad with my digital photos Sharon, I looked yesterday and there are 29 493 photos on my drive, those photos and another 4 years worth of digitals take up 50 dvd's and cd's

I can not delete photo's. ok unless they are blurred beyond recognition.

But if it helps at all I leave them all in the folders they download to so everything is stored by date, at the end of the month I back them up and more them to a folder with their month and year inside the 2008 digitals folder..I must read that book, I also have boxes of unsorted printed photos too

Lissy said...

i need to read that book too...lol...I have 70, 000 digital photos but it wouldn't suprise me ot find I have as many from film...lol...glad you are getting it done :) Keep at it :) Can you take out the centre dividers in the Cropper Hopper for panoramic size prints??

Jen said...

ooohhh I like that photo!

Glad you had a good day, we went to my Mum n Dads for a luncheon in the dining hall (roast beef and pork, vegies, salad and desert)
Every Mum got a lovely rose as well, I was talking to a lady there- it was her first Mums Day - I can remember how special that first one is LOL !!!

I have no idea how to store photos and like you it would be a big job so I'm not even starting !!!

I cant seem to get onto your web site - it keeps coming up "service Unavailable"

Luv JEn xxx

Judy said...

can you guys come and stay at my place again - then maybe my photos will be organized - lol!

Pearl Maple said...

Great photo, always enjoy visiting and seeing all your creative posts.