creating a story Archives - Page 7 of 11

Picture Display Movement. Step 3. Organize

{For Step 2 in the Picture Display Movement, click here}

ORGANIZE YOUR PHOTOS:

For me, this step initially felt the most overwhelming. But once I got started, it turned out to be no big deal and went really fast.

I use iphoto for all my photo organizing. BUT. You don’t have to have iphoto to organize photos like this. You can use the same “folder” system on any computer, Mac or PC.

The problem for me initially was the lack of organization within iPhoto and being able to effectively choose what I wanted to print and keep some sense of order in doing that.

All my pictures were in iPhoto, but that’s it. If you don’t use iPhoto, your pictures are all sitting somewhere on your computer waiting to be organized (probably in a native “Pictures” folder). I started using iPhoto in 2009 so I had 5 years worth of photos in there and was overwhelmed by the prospect of organizing them.

Until I came up with this system.

Keep in mind there are hundreds of different ways you can organize photos. Which is what overwhelms me. So I had to pick something simple. That I know I would do and that I would maintain.

To organize the photos that were already in iPhoto, 5 years worth, I created folders for each year as well as a “vacations” folder. See the photo below, under “albums” where it has folders for each year and one for vacations. If you aren’t using iPhoto, just create these folders right on your desktop or in your “Pictures” folder.

I then created an album for each month in that year as well as an album for Holidays in that year. Then I moved those albums into the folder for that year. If you aren’t using iPhoto, just create another folder for EACH month and put those months in the individual years folder (so each year will have 12 folders–one for each month).

Then I clicked on “Events” in my library so all the pictures in my iPhoto library would come up and went month by month and put the pictures in their corresponding folder. The physical pictures don’t move so they are all still visible in the events part of your library. But then when you click on one of the months folder, only that month shows (which can make it easier to find certain photos). If you aren’t using iPhoto, you can sort the photos on your computer according to the “date created” and then drag and drop the pictures into the correct months.

To do this quickly in iPhoto, you can click on the box with pictures from the first of the month, then hold down the shift key and click on the box with pictures from the last of the month. Then just drag and drop them into the appropriate album. You can also drag and drop if you aren’t using iPhoto. Just look at the date on each photo and drag them into the appropriate folder.

{See how the boxes for July are highlighted in yellow. Then just drag those into the “July” album.}

After each month, I would look through that month for any holidays or vacations, highlight those pictures and drag those into the appropriate albums as well. You can have the same picture in multiple albums without moving the original file. It just makes a “copy” of those pictures which takes up very minimal space on your hard drive.

This entire process of organizing 5 years worth of photos (I have about 30,000 photos in my iPhoto library) took me about one hour. Quick. Easy. And simple.

And I feel So. Much.Better now that it’s done.

When I first tried organizing my photos I was doing it by events and dates and each individual kid and it was taking forever. I chose the month-by-month system because I have a general idea when we did certain things so when I’m trying to find a photo, any photo, I just search in the month folder it would have taken place and there it is.

Now to maintain. At the end of each month (on a SET date) I will move those files into their album for the month and put them in the folder for their year. Should take about 2 minutes.

If you don’t have iPhoto, figure out a photo organizing system that works for your family. Just keep it simple and schedule regular times to maintain it. If you have the right system, it really doesn’t take very long.

You can still set up a Folder for each year, then folders for each month and drag the photos into those folders. This works on a PC or a MAC.

Step 3. Organize those photos

Now don’t stop there! Step 4 is to PRINT THOSE PICTURES!!!!

If you have questions, please feel free to contact me! I’m happy to help where I can.

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What makes a person memorable

I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of “story”. And living a good life story. Creating a life story. I was first introduced to the idea of life as a story by Donald Miller in his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Since then I have been following Miller’s blog and get e-mails from him every once in a while. That kinda makes it sound like we’re friends. 🙂 I subscribe to his blog. But still.

The last e-mail I received really stood out to me and I didn’t want to forget it. And it’s something I’d like my children to read one day, so I’m including parts of it in this post. If there’s ONE thing I want to teach my children, it’s to be kind. Always. And to everyone.

“Bill Murray is making a name for himself…Other than the obvious that he’s a great actor, here’s his secret: He’s MEMORABLY KIND.
By memorably kind, I mean he does more than open doors or lend you his umbrella. He’s quite creative about his kindness, actually.”

He goes on to describe a story about Bill Murray on an elevator in a hotel when a guy got on and recognized him. The man told Murray he was a fan. Bill nodded and smiled. The fan walked “sheepishly out of the elevator”. When they got to the entrance, the fan went one way, Murray went the other way.

“Then, suddenly, Bill Murray turned, ran toward the man and tackled him into a shrub. He sat up, pointed his finger at the man and said Your friends will never believe this happened!

There are more stories…Once when asked for an autograph, Murray refused. But he did spend the better part of the rest of the day with the young fan shooting a scene on the guys I-phone that he could his friends and post on Facebook.

And there’s more. He tweeted he was in a certain city and if anybody was throwing a party he wanted to come. He then made appearances at several parties that night.

Why is Murray so cherished as an actor and a man? In my opinion, it’s because he’s creatively kind.”

This is the part of the e-mail that really stood out to me:

“What being memorably kind is about is showing the world there’s goodness in it, there’s kindness and grace. I’ve a friend who says we are supposed to go around putting little feathers of kindness on the internal scale people use to measure good vs evil.“

That good vs evil scale could use as much kindness as we can give it. Collectively, we tip the scale towards the good side instead of the evil.

Don’t just be kind, be memorably kind. I love that.

Twinkle Lights. Or why I have Christmas lights up in my house all year.

“When we reach out and share ourselves–our fears, hopes, struggles, and joy–we create small sparks of connection. Our shared vulnerability creates light in normally dark places. My metaphor for this is twinkle lights (I keep them in my house year-round as a reminder).
There’s something magical about the idea of twinkle lights shining in dark and difficult places. The lights are small, and a single light is not very special, but an entire strand of sparkling lights is sheer beauty. It’s the connectivity that makes them beautiful. When it comes to vulnerability, connectivity means sharing our stories with people who have earned the right to hear them…”
Brene Brown, Daring Greatly

(image from Internet)

I loved Brene Brown’s story about twinkle lights.

I know sometimes I don’t share my stories, or my “light” for various reasons. Sometimes out of embarrassment, or fear, or sometimes because I don’t even recognize the stories as important. It’s not something I’m proud of, it’s just truth.

But I have found when I share my light and my stories, when I stay true to me, and embrace what I have to give the world, I feel more whole. Brene calls it “wholehearted”. I live and love with my WHOLE heart. And when I allow my light to shine, I in turn encourage others to do the same. And though my light alone isn’t strong enough to light the way, when we all combine our lights together, we change the world.

Sibling love

I am constantly grateful these two boys have each other. To play with. To love. To wrestle. To terrorize. To just BE together. What a life-long blessing to have a sibling to grow up with and be an integral part of your life story. Though we didn’t plan to have them so close together, I am thankful it worked out the way it did. Caleb adores his older brother and I hope it always stays that way. And Carter refuses to sit by Caleb at meal time because he’s “too messy”.

They keep me oh-so-busy. And I’m already dreading the day they both go to school and I’ll be buddy-less during the day. Boo. Double Boo.

Boys, you’re lucky to have each other. Don’t ever forget that.

Picture Display Movement. Step 2. Load and Back up.

{Click here for Step 1 of Project Picture Display}

After I am focused on taking more photos, the next step is to get them on my computer.

I’m really good about doing this with my dSLR, but horrible about doing it with my phone. Some pictures sit on my phone for months before I ever put them on my computer. And a lot of the pictures I take these days are with my camera phone for convenience/logistical issues. (I’m still busy just trying to keep track of the four little humans I usually have around me and all the “stuff” that seems to accompany them). And without that handy camera phone, I’d miss pictures like this. Of my kid hugging a mannequin. Not weird at all.

Here’s the key to the rest of The Picture Display Movement. There HAS to be a system and it has to be SIMPLE or it will never get done. So find a system. Schedule a consistent time to do it. And keep it simple!! We schedule time to clean. Time to do laundry. Time to exercise. We should DEFINITELY schedule time to organize, print, and display our photos.

Here’s the system that works for me. This will have to be tweaked for each family just like chore charts have to be tweaked for each family (still working on fine tuning our chore/money system), but find something, anything, that works for you and stick to it.

I load my photos directly into iPhoto. When I plug in my camera or phone to my computer, iPhoto automatically pops up and the pictures go straight in there. The pictures automatically sort by date.

Once the pictures are loaded, I make sure they are backed up onto an external hard drive. You can get those at Costco. I just bought a 3TB external drive (most people won’t need one that big) for about $120. Worth every penny if my computer hard drive crashes. This is a step that should never be skipped. It’s not hard and only takes a few extra minutes. You can just drag and drop the photos onto the icon for the hard drive and it copies them to the hard drive.

I also back up my entire computer hard-drive to an online site. I researched several online storage companies and finally settled with Backblaze because it is unlimited storage for a really affordable price ($5 per month) and it allows me to back up all my external hard-drives as well (as long as I plug them in every 30 days). I have 7 full external hard drives and a nearly full computer hard drive. I see the “your startup disc is almost full” message more times than I care to keep track of.

I need a lot of storage space. Backblaze backs up my entire hard drive (photos, documents, music, etc.) so if (more like when) my hard-drive crashes, I know everything is backed up on Backblaze.

When deciding on an online storage company, I wanted something that was:

1. affordable

2. I personally knew someone who used the company to recover photos

3. unlimited storage including external hard drives

So after looking at and comparing several well-known companies (and talking to several photographer friends), I decided on Backblaze.

If your photos aren’t backed up, I can not emphasize enough that you NEED to do this step. Even if your photos are a big hot-mess right now. Back them up. Then worry about organizing. Trust me on this one.

Step 2. Load ’em and BACK THEM UP!!!

Click here for Step 3. ORGANIZE those Photos.

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