Travel Photos: Figuring Out What To Do With Them!
November 1, 2012 in Inspiration
I asked Tony this morning, to try to get a “ball park” figure on our number of photos so far traveling:
Roughly 30,000
Yes, seriously.
This isn’t all of our photos, mind you. These are the ones that we access to, that are “with us.” There are others that are saved off on hard drives elsewhere. There are many that we’ve deleted. Arguably, there are about 29,500 more that need to be deleted!
We’ve been contemplating what to do with them for some time:
- I cull through regularly looking for just the right shots to go with a particular article, so we need to keep most of them with us.
- We think it will be fabulous to have them on an Apple TV as a continually changing picture frame one day. You know, when we have a house.
- Tony has this idea to one day sell canvas prints of some of his best.
- We’ve had vinyl banners printed for conventions occasionally.
- When Lois and I took our Mama Bus trip we had car magnets made for sponsors and advertisers. In retrospect it would have been fun to have made yard signs to pass out to our generous hosts as we traveled; kind of a “you are here!” aspect to documenting our journey. Perhaps next time.
- I’d like to get note cards or postcards made someday.
- Of course I hope to make the kids photo books when we’re in one place long enough to have them out and enjoy them!
- My father-in-law has used several of our travel photos as subjects for his beautiful paintings, and those have become family travels already.
So this is a subject of discussion and I thought I’d put this question out there:
What do YOU do with all of the photos that pile up over a life?
Do you have any creative suggestions for us on how to make the memories last and display them in a way that is meaningful but doesn’t drive our friends crazy?
(We won’t subject you to a marathon slideshow next time we visit, I promise!)
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I think one of the best things you can do with them is work them into your blog, for you, your family and friends and your children. Words and pictures together make the best memories.
We are in the midst of creating a “photo hallway” with some of our favorites, but all of the others go in an annual Green Family Yearbook (photo book)….all of which Ezra LOVES to look through on a daily basis.
Great idea Abigail! Someday I’ll have a hallway again! 😉 I want to do yearbooks too… when I have a place to store them. Alyson, I agree, and we do as much of that as we can, and we have a Flickr account too… just so MANY! 🙂
You probably know this but I found out you can turn your blog into a scrapbook. I am so excited about that. I am gearing up to start that for 2013.
I would love to know how you turn your blog into a scrapbook, and Jen, you should totally do that for your children! One for each continent or each major tour! We are big photo takers too and it’s such a load. I’d love to know more about how you are storing them so that you can scroll through them and find what you are looking for. I’m weak in the area of taking time to keyword the pictures. The post-processing part is really tough for me, because I don’t have the time for it. Please share what you do to post-process and “file” your photos. I would think an electronic frame would be great for you now and in the future maybe one in every room that you rotate albums of photos. The Apple TV will be inspirational when you finally “settle” – still waiting to see how that chapter plays out!
Marci… nope… I have no idea how to do that, except the hard way through Shutterfly or some service like that (which I did for the Mama Bus trip as a gift for my friend, and to document my in-laws’ first international trip to join us in Guatemala two winters ago) I have definite plans in that direction in the future…. any tips or links you have to help out would be much appreciated!!
Mary Ellen- We store our photos in iPhoto and Tony does a lot of the post processing in Aperture. We also back things up on external hard drives to keep from losing stuff if a computer gets jacked at some point. The electronic frames are very cool, especially for Grandmothers who can’t see the kids often. If you’re waiting for the “settling” chapter, be prepared to keep reading for a couple of years yet… we’re headed back towards Canada, for sure, but by a circuitous route! 😉
I have never tried it myself, so I couldn’t say how it works or if it’ll be any good, but I saw before that you can turn your blog into a book directly using Blur. You can check it out here: http://www.blurb.com/blog-book.
Thanks Laura, I have a friend who has done this… but I’ve never tried… we have SO MUCH on here that some serious “weeding” would need to happen. I have ideas for books in the future… but am too busy “living it” right now! I’ll keep ahold of that link for later.
I print my favourite shots on the back of my business/traveller cards. Using moo.com each card can have a different picture. When I need to leave my contact details to a new friend I let him/her pick a random card, and then I can quickly explain the story behind it.
Val… I love that idea!