Heading to the white board, Joshua did some math calculations to see how my 11K pictures averages out for the year. It’s day 321 of Project 365, so if you take 11,000 and divide it by 321, you end up with close to 34.5. Hmmm, since I haven’t been taking many pictures these days (18 today, 5 yesterday and 2 on Thursday), I guess there must be some weeks when I am very picture happy. A Snap Happy, Camera Lovin’ Mama!
This morning we went to Michael’s for their Saturday craft workshop.
Thankfully we aren’t listing how many GOOD pictures I have taken this year or how many BLOG-Worthy pictures, or even how many EMBARRASSING shots.
20 Great pictures
3500 Bad pictures
That leaves me with 7480 average, not particularly note-worthy pictures.
What a legacy for the year! 
We joined some friends from the Hey Kids Club.
I had a lengthy conversation with a friend this week about scrapbooking and faith journaling. I was impressed with her idea of recording the meaningful aspects of her family’s life. She shared that her joy comes in photographing and scrapbooking the traditions and special aspects of their family and heritage.
I was moved by this concept of purposeful journaling, although I did have to warn her, “Honey, you’re never gonna make 12,000 pictures a year that way.” Strangely she wasn’t terribly concerned by my words.
Snowflake ornaments were the craft of the day.
The burning, yet unspoken, question in my family is whether we will attempt Project 365 for 2008. The other is, how many hard drives will we need to back up all these pictures. Ha!
I also need to develop a better way of sorting and identifying my pictures. Right now I name them according to the date and have files for each month of the year. It’s a simple system but it works well. I use the pictures quite a bit for blogs and other projects so I’m usually pretty familiar with what photos we have in the files. Joshua does some photo-editing as well so he is also a great resource in locating specific pictures.
Two of my scrapbooking friends are currently using Adobe’s Photoshop for sorting and organizing their pictures. I looked over their system and LOVED the way the program allows you to “tag” your pictures according to person or event. It would be wonderful to be able to hit “Sarah 2007″ and have all of the pictures I’ve taken of Sarah come up.
How, I have to ask, do I find the time to sort through and tag 11,000 pictures?? And that’s only the ones we’ve taken in 2007. Gulp! I need to sit down and take a few deep breaths.
Maybe this is a good time to start angling for my own laptop. How do you all organize your pictures? Do you use Photoshop or Creative Memories or another organizer? I know some people have theirs on Snapfish or Flickr. Do pass along your tips!!
Kathy
Project 365 – Day 321
I have no idea!!
I’ll return to this blog and hope to learn something.
Love you, Aunt Kate
Organizing pictures is a definite reason for your OWN laptop! It could be the picture-only laptop…heh.heh….
I have to say that my pictures are not organized in any way, shape or form. The best ones are enlarged and hung on the wall! I have a wall that is just black and white pictures in our hallway. Every so often I add another one…Does this count for organizing them?? ha!
I can’t wait to hear some good tips on photo organizing…bring them on!
Kathy, I save my photos to CDs when I want to free space on my computer. I’ve had computers crash, so I back everything up on an external hard drive weekly. I do NOT trust computers, so I want to know I have saved those valuable photos somewhere safe. I realize CDs and DVDs don’t last forever, but I think they’ll last longer than my hard drive.
Saving regularly is totally wise! Of all the things to lose if – When – a computer crashes, the pictures would be the most heartbreaking. I have no tips for you; I’m lucky to take 34 pictures a quarter! I label them by date when I do take them…
Okay, here’s what I do. FIRST, I do NOT take 11,000 pictures in a year. In fact, I fuss at the kids when they take too many because then I have to DO something with them. Then, I use Shutterfly’s free program, Shutterfly Studio, which does allow you to tag pictures. I don’t do much tagging, though, just because I don’t take that many pictures. Sad, but true!
I use photobucket. You can make groups for the pics and move them around. So it’s nice and it’s free. I use my HP software that came with my digi cam to upload to the computer and with that I can shrink the pics down to a managable size for the web
What do your children’s friends think of the mom who always has a camera to her face?!
11,000. While that’s a ton–or 5.5 tons–of photos, I see it as a ministry, Kathy, seriously. You are blessing your family with real shots of every day, a few dozen of every day. This is stuff they will NOT forget, and they will always remember the mom who gave them not only the gift of every day, but a way to never forget those days of their childhoods.