While cleaning out the bottom shelf of the linen closet the other day, I came a box containing all of our family photos. This box has laid untouched for YEARS. Of course, many of the albums have been ripped or broken in parts or have completely detached from their spines. I have started the arduous task of reorganising and bought new albums to put our photos into.
Photo by Nik Guiney on Unsplash
The Hard Feelings
For memories that some might hold very close to their heart and represent special moments in our past, it seems almost shameful for these photos to have laid unforgotten for so long, in their broken albums. To me, it almost seems disrespectful? It we truly appreciated these photos as everyone says they do (first to get in fires for example), wouldn’t we treat them with a higher regard?
I easily feel the weight of extra stuff in my life and this also includes photos. Back when we had camera with rolls of film, there was no knowing what the picture would turn out like after it was developed. But as I flick through the photos, I find that even the ‘bad’ photos have been kept. I have a box where I started to put these ‘bad’ photos, photos of landscape (hello Sydney Harbour Bridge photo #10) and photos where no-one knows who is exactly in the photo.
Seeing photos where I don’t recognise the people like of grandma and her friends who have all passed makes me realise how fleeting photos can be. They really only mean something to someone for so long. When I’m wise and older, I’ll have photos where future family won’t recognise the people in the photos.
I started envelopes to give away photos to relatives. It’s nice to have their family photo but there’s only so much space one can dedicate to photos. I came to realise that it’s not our responsibility to keep photos for others. There are still many group photos in our collection which actually feature people from our family so I’m not getting rid of their existence from our photo completely.
There were also a lot of feelings of guilt from everyone about sorting and parting with photos. I know photos from the past as ‘irreplaceable’ but getting rid of them does not mean getting rid of the past or part of who we are. Yet there seems to be this feeling around not being able to recover anything from the past and a fear around loosing that so wanting to keep everything. There is no point in keeping everything especially if the box lays unopen for years.
Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash
The Unanswered Questions
What do you do about photos of other people’s weddings who have since separated?
How many photos do you need of a birthday party?
Do you keep photos of friends from the past who are no longer in your life?
How often do you go back to declutter your photos?
Why is there so much guilt about letting go of photos?
Moving Forward
To me, I hold my travel photos close to my heart and have printed the ‘best of the best’ photos from my trips. It’s been a few years now since I updated that photo album so I plan to continue to update it. Of course, this will mean going through my digital photos to find my favourite ones. Do you display photos from your trips?
Digital Photo Storage
Doing this photo sorting of actual photos got me thinking about all the digital photos that I have. I have some recent ones on a free cloud space and most are in hard drives. I’ve been thinking of scanning all the old actual photos and buying more cloud space, although they’ve seem to have made us pay for everything in our life now and I’m just morally against it! I’m after some ideas on what everyone else does. How do you store your digital photos?
I’m really interested in what you think about some of the questions here. Let me know!
Lingo in Transit 
A few years ago, I went through a bunch of old photo albums, from when I was a kid to even before I was born (of my parents). I picked out the ones which were in decent shape and scanned them to my laptop, then categorized into folders on there. I also recently purchased extra storage for my Cloud in case I need to add more photos. So far, it’s been working out for me! Truly, print photos are slowly becoming a thing of the past, but all the more important to hold on to and cherish them.
Did it take a while to scan? I’m still not even finished sorting the photos hahaha. I still print some photos especially of travel but it’s usually just a handful from the trip and more for me to look back on.
It took maybe 2-3 days, no more than a week to sort through and scan to the computer. Then again, it was during the pandemic, so I had plenty of time! 😆
Photos pose a dilemma – however, I think it’s important to selectively keep the good ones. And even the not so good ones can bring back special memories. For the last seven years, I have made and have printed photo books from our major trips. I think they should last a while. I really can’t see our sons trawling through my computer to retrieve photos from my endless library. USB’s could easily fall through the net, and will they check them out? And what about my old collection of slide photos. Probably off to the tip! But the printed ones will be there, easily accessed. I recall sitting with my siblings on the floor of my mother’s home when she died, surrounded by hundreds of print photos. We chatted about our memories as we each choose photos to keep. We also have a photo album from the 1930’s – photos taken by my husband’s grandfather. Fortunately, his father was able to idenify many of the people in the photos. But it was also a wonderful record of the 1930’s, the clothes people wore, the gatherings they had. It’s a treasure we will hand down to the younger generations. As for my print photos from my younger days of travelling, I have begun including them in my travel blog. At first I was reluctant to do this, as my memories of those times were a bit hazy. But on my son’s urging, I did it and found once I focused on the photo, memories came flooding back. Days in places like Afghanistan and Iran – places not so accessible now to the average traveller.
I completely agree that printed photos are easier to access- for yourself and your family. Our family albums stop around the time that digital camera’s started which is a shame because it’s still decades of events/travel photos/memories that seem to be missing. Wow, photos from the 1930’s would be so interesting to look at. Good idea on writing about your trips from when you were younger particularly of places that are not accessible- it is interesting for us to see a glimpse into the past world of better days (maybe). It’s amazing what we can remember after so many years!
I store a lot of my photos on an external hard drive so it doesn’t take up too much space on google photos. I delete videos after a while as they are gobble up the most space.
As for photos, I have the best ones printed up in poster format and frame them. I can enjoy them every day.
Others are in special albums that I take out once or twice a year. I then have collections of old family photos but duplicates and wedding photos if people have separated are only kept if they are an especially nice photo of someone in my family.
Flowers and gardens are usually ditched after a while. Most of my photos though are of my pets!
It’s so good that you’ve been through your photos and are actively refreshing who needs to be kept or not! It’s something that I’ve long neglected for my own photos and no-one has in my family has touched family photos for years. We decided as a family to keep the ones of wedding photos of those separated too because we were in them too. I love that your pets make a big feature in your photos!
Indeed but do I really need hundreds of photos of my dogs?
Looking through old family pictures can evoke a feeling of nostalgia, bring up sweet memories, and even raise questions as to who the people in them are. They can give us a real feel for a time and place that may be long gone. They can remind us of our childhood, parents or grandparents, or a time when life seemed simpler.
I love the fashion from back then and wished we could find such items like that today! We can, but they are harder to find.
I’m like you – I don’t like to gather things. Maybe our reasons are similar or maybe different (I get anxiety from nostalgia, I don’t always like remembering past things or thinking of time passing!) but I’ve thrown away photos, old letters, childhood memorabilia… mostly no regrets! I can’t really understand people who collect things.As for digital pics, I store them on an external hard drive that I update every now and then. Or two, actually. I printed some pics of my kids as backups (ok, “some” quickly turned into hundreds, but it was an accident and I felt quite overwhelmed when I saw how many they were – I gave a bunch to my mum, then.)
For me, I think it’s that I feel weighed down by the past when I want to be present and look to the future. Oh I am the same, many things that aren’t that important to me from childhood are gone. From my comments, it still seems that printed photos are still popular! I’m sure your kids will go through their childhood things one day and will be glad to see and keep some (or all- each to their own).
I meant to say I threw away my own childhood stuff (school work, drawings etc) but I’ve kept my kids´! They’re still young and the memories are still fresh – no anxiety 🙂