filed in

3 Tips For Organising Your Photo’s

Last year I began a ‘Project 365’. I started this not only to improve my work in some areas, but also to just document my everyday life with my family. Each day, I take at least one photo of something that has happened in my day. Some days are more creative than others, but everyday I have at least one memory, saved forever, on something other than my ever increasing forgetful Mum brain!

At the end of each month, I have a template, where I place my photo from each day in its corresponding spot, as a sort of overview.

But then what would I do when it came to the end of the year and I had all these memories, just sitting on my hard drive getting lost, just like they do in my head as time goes on.

I have always loved sitting down looking through photo’s. My Grandma would always get photo’s out and would tell me the stories attached to each one, and my Mum had boxes and boxes of photo albums all organised with their date and the event on them. This was easily done when photo’s were taken on film because we were all regularly printing, eagerly anticipating delivery of the prints, excited to remind ourselves what we had shot on that particular roll. With digital, taking photo’s is more readily available, but with the mass, comes the overwhelming task of organisation! Unless photography is your career or a hobby you are extremely enthusiastic about, I imagine you take photo’s on your phone, maybe upload them to your computer when your phone gets full, and then never look through them. And heaven help us if we need a particular photo for a birthday memory or worse… a funeral.

I have created my own system for storing my personal images and I thought I would share 3 tips for organising your images.

Tip 1: Upload your images regularly – This is probably the most important tip when it comes to keeping on top of photo storage. These days, phones can store a huge amount of data; everything from photos to music to videos and even movies. Some even come with memory cards, so when your internal storage is full, you can start on the memory card! It’s insane how many phone quality images these things hold. When we are photographing our children, our pets and even our food, 20 photo’s quickly turns into 200 and then 2000. Imagine trying to find that picture of your Grandad in amongst those 400 you took of your avocado on toast!!!

Bonus tip: If you are photographing something to quickly show someone, DELETE IT STRAIGHT AFTER YOU SEND IT. That way, in three years time when you’ve plucked up the courage to sort through your photo’s, you aren’t wondering why you took photo’s of that crack in the ceiling or that you were wearing one sheep sock and one Wednesday sock that day.

Tip 2: Organise into folders – This could be by event (a wedding for example), or by date. It is so much easier to find photo’s of little Timmy’s Birthday if you just have to look in the folder ‘January 2016’, than by trawling through an album entitled ‘Phone Pics To Organise’. 
Tip 3: PRINT YOUR PHOTO’S REGULARLY. I can’t stress this enough. You know that song that has you in tears every time you listen to it because it reminds you of the day you became a Mum (Or a Dad)? Or the smell of your Mums laundry powder, that reminds you of the last time you stayed at their house and they washed your clothes like you were a kid again yourself? PHOTO’S DO THAT TOO! There is nothing like walking down your hallway, carrying your keys, phone and wallet, heading off to another ground hog day at work, and turning to see a picture of your babies with their grubby little hands, framed on your wall. Because those babies grow, and now they have their own babies and you miss those dirty little hand prints all over your walls and windows. Do you get reminded of those sweet times with photo’s sitting on one of 15 hard drives in your home stuck in a drawer? I think not 🙂 If you love the photo, print it!
If you would like recommendations on places you can print, I’m always happy to answer. You can contact me here

Would you like to see more tips in future? Leave a comment below!

Keep an eye on my Instagram stories, as I will be sharing my Family Yearbook that I just sent to print soon!

2 Comments

  • I love this! Thanks for sharing. Especially your tip about deleting photos you don’t need later. I’m so guilty of keeping them all and I definitely don’t need to weed through them 5 years later! Awesome blog post. 

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

meet the photographer lizzy

Here at Lizzy Hannaford Photography, I am committed to creating a relaxed, fun photography experience that even Dads can enjoy! 

I draw on my lifetime of experience working with children and families from a range of backgrounds to ensure you feel safe to be yourselves and most importantly, feeling like having family photographs taken was easy. 

From providing a studio wardrobe for Mums & styling guidance for the entire family to my step by step preparation guide, you can be assured you will be taken care of.

search the site

featured posts

How to choose a Newborn photographer Cairns 

How to choose the best family photographer in cairns

post categories

GET YOUR
FREE GUIDE

Is quality time your love language? Are you always the one behind the camera but never IN the photos of your favourite moments together as a family? Recreate your favourite moments and activities at your next session. Here are some ideas to get you started!