Your Photographic Memories: Organizing Vacation Photos

You have a LOT of these by now. I am going to help you with this. Keep in mind that you and (most of) your family are the only people who remotely care about the trips you have taken, unless you are a travel journalist or work for National Geographic Magazine as a contributing photographer. Keeping this in mind, I want—no—I need you to create a powerful album about your journey in the light of a storyteller that you and your people who love you want to know about YOU. How did YOU experience that trip? What did you feel when you saw the Mona Lisa for the first time? What did it feel like to stand under that waterfall in Bali? Did you get scared when you stood at the top of the Grand Canyon? Who was with you? Why was this trip so important to you?

Here is an excerpt from the digital book I am making in my Forever account from my trip to New Mexico last year:

I love photo albums, and I love the new digital books that you can make from companies like Shutterfly, MPix, and Blurb. If you don’t have time to create an album, hire a professional Photo Organizer who specializes in making albums out of your digital photos, and can help you sift through the memories painlessly. If all of this still sounds like too much work, upload the photos to a digital frame, and enjoy the slide show! My favorite digital frame is Nixplay. It is incredibly easy to use, and beautiful to display anywhere in your home - on a surface or mounted on a wall. I love how you can upload pictures easily using apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Google Photos, and Alexa.

Before you go on your next trip, create a folder in your phone’s photo app just for that location or trip. Your phone will time and date stamp those photos, so don’t you worry about that! So snap away, but just consciously put those special photos in that folder every day on your trip. This act alone will help you pick your best vacation photos, which then can be uploaded to your favorite album printing company before you are wheels down on your return home trip. This daily exercise will also help you delete the duds, or the 30 extra sunset pictures, so that later you have less to declutter out of your phone. Let’s be honest...you KNOW when you get home from the trip, you are going to be unpacking and getting organized for your real life within 24 hours of returning, and the trip will just become a distant memory. Your good intentions to make a book or keepsake will get drowned in your everyday life, which is busy enough.

Jill Yesko is a Professional Photo Organizer and Certified Professional Organizer located in Pittsburgh, PA. Her team at Discover Organizing are trained in scanning, digitization, and organization of all media types.