Photo overwhelm. What’s the problem?
I understand all about this . . . I had 83,000 photos, but couldn’t find my favourite ones.
I had this vague sense of unease about my photos. My Apple Photo roll was in a mess – an overwhelming jumble of digital debris. My photos were something I was going to ‘curate’ when I had the time – but of course there never was enough time. Plus I didn’t have a clue where to start.
And all the while time is passing – photos aren’t being printed and put into styilsh frames and I wasn’t creating the beautiful photo books I was dreaming of. So this tugged at my conscience. What would happen if I lost my iPhone or Mac? What if some photos were accidently deleted? What if something happened to me? I didn’t know what would happen to all my family’s photos and memories.
This discomfort was not helped by the fact that the problem was getting worse – the average iPhone user is taking 250 photos per month, an enormous 3,000 images per year. We are all guilty of whipping out of iPhones at every opportunity and I was no different. Selfies, diet photos, images of shoes I’d never bought, food inspiration, gorgeous sunsets, screen shots, days out and duplilcates. The list went on and my family kept taking pictures too - the boys enjoy snapping every event and love taking burst shots.
“Things came to a head when my Father died. I wanted to find this wonderful photo of him laughing, with his head thrown back, but I couldn’t find it.”
It was all there in a big jumble. The real issue is that the important things – the great photos, special memories and that receipt you need to keep, are buried in amongst all of that digital debris. Older photos were scattered around on different devices and whenever I tried to put my finger on a specific picture it look a while – I’d be scrolling through innumerable files or hunting through old boxes.
I realise now that I was feeling overwhelmed by all this stuff. It is the modern age equivalent of having bulging drawers, cupboards or an over-flowing loft. And it’s not just photos – it’s music, contacts, emails and files – if you never purge, or organise or start again you end up with an unwieldy collection of digital stuff – digital debris. But that’s a whole other story.
Back to my photos. Things came to a head when my Father died. I wanted to find this wonderful photo of him laughing, with his head thrown back, but I couldn’t find it. Looking through all the boxes and then finding it buried in amongst other stuff felt all wrong. We should have been going through these pictures and enjoying them. It got me thinking and I decided to make it a lockdown project to catch up with my family photo muddle, starting with my Apple photo roll. Yes it was a distraction, but also something positive I could get on with.
I am so glad I made that decision. Sorting your photos is one of the most rewarding things you can do. The pure joy of looking at old images again – I got that warm buzz inside. And now I love taking my children through our family’s story. We have so much fun, feel connected to each other and to my father.
On a more practical level, it’s good to know that my photographs are all in one place, safe and backed up. This gave me a real sense of achievement.
Once I’d started on my photos, I got the bug and took a lot of courses to figure out what was the best way to deduplicate and organise them and then the best software to manage them. I am quite techy anyway and enjoy this kind of research.
I now have a system that works for me and I share this with my clients – whether I organise their photos for them, or teach them how to tackle it themselves.And I must say, that gives me a real sense of achievement too.
