I confess: I am a photography addict. My mother feels sorry for my poor children for having to put up with cameras constantly flashing in their little eyes. We rarely visit portrait studios because I like to shoot the pictures myself. Photography is a love of mine, so organizing my photos is particularly important to me.
Some people keep the most beautiful scrapbooks. I have done this in the past, but stopped around the time my third child was born. One reason was that I had less time to spend on it, but the bigger reason is that it was not a hobby I particularly loved. I was not especially good at scrapbooking, and giving it up was not a great loss to me. If scrapbooking is something you love to do, then this is a great way to organize your photos, and your scrapbooks will be treasured keepsakes for generations.
If scrapbooking is not your thing, but you find it important to keep them organized nonetheless, I have a few suggestions.
Digital Photography
After my fifth child was born, my wonderful husband bought me a digital camera. It is so much simpler to organize all of my thousands (yes, thousands!) of photos. I file them on my computer according to date. So that they will always be in order, I create a directory in “My Pictures” for each year; for example, “2005” or “2006.” In each year's directory, I create subdirectories, named for a four month period; for example, “01-04,” “05-08” and “09-12.” In these subdirectories are all the photos, named however I please, for example “kids1,” “kids2,” or “hannahpiano1.” Sometimes I don't even bother naming them, but just keep whatever numerical name the computer gave them when they were uploaded.
I admit that I have not yet saved a hard copy of all these photos, and have been searching for a good system to do this as a backup. Recently I discovered that Yahoo and Google both host photos for free, and I plan to start the process of moving some of my digital photographs there. Pen drives are another good option because they are small, yet have huge memories, and they can be easily stored in a fire-safe box.
Film Photography
If you have not gone to digital photography, here is another suggestion. I maintained my prints in chronological order with oversized photo albums, and photo page protectors with pockets for four 4x6 photos on each page. This means that on each 2-page spread, I would view eight photos. Underneath the displayed photos, I would stick extra prints and photos taken at the same sitting but a different pose. Each album contained several years of photos. Considering the number of photos I was storing, this was a very big deal!
Portraits
I continue to maintain one photo album, which is designated for portraits. It begins with a wedding portrait of Michael and me, and I keep all annual portraits of the children, formal group photos, and any other extra special prints in this album. I keep several copies of the photos in each page protector, so that when my children are grown, I will be able to easily pull out copies for the children to keep.
