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kswl2

Family Photos on Display.......Dying a Digital Death?

kswl2
9 years ago

As I was decorating for Christmas this year I realized I don't have any framed candid photos of family members from the past six years or so, while I have hundreds of them in my online photo storage site. So I have ordered several 4x6 prints of the kids together on different trips for each family member and will frame them as gifts. Not a big present, I think the prints were all less than a dollar each and I'm not buying expensive frames, but more meaningful than I realized. When I was ordering them i found myself tearing up over these precious memories and realized I have missed seeing recent moments like this in my home. I have tons of photos around of the kids as children, but not many of them as adults because now they start out digital and stay that way.

I can't wait to see their reactions when they unwrap these at Christmas, obviously I'm hoping they'll find value in having a **real** picture out in their homes where they can see it and feel that family connection. We'll see, I guess, if they actually put these out :-) They are all young and still in flux, but at their age I took pictures of my mother and father and brother with me wherever I went --- in one of those small trifold silver frames--- and put it next to my bed wherever in the world I happened to be. We traveled a lot and that represented home to me.

Do you order prints of photos to display in frames? or carry them with you in your wallet or handbag, or is it all online storage or phone display? Is that one reason Facebook is so popular? (Except newer format doesn't seem to display as many photos as before--- you have to actually go into a person's albums to see them now.). I'm curious about this, whether it represents a real loss or if others actually look at their photos more often now that they are accessible electronically. Is this just a another manifestation of my 58-year old curmudgeonly self :-) ?

Comments (48)

  • Sueb20
    9 years ago

    I do print photos, but not as much as I used to. I can't remember the last time I actually put photos in an old-fashioned album. When we go on a big trip, I make a photo book through Shutterfly. I am sitting here in our dining/library room, which has a wall of bookshelves, and I can see about 8 framed photos on the shelves. A couple are from the past year, because we had a family reunion and a milestone birthday party. But generally, I don't frame pics as much as I used to...partly because I'm always on a quest to have less clutter!

  • TheRedHouse
    9 years ago

    I have a few framed prints displayed, but only in my personal spaces like my bedside table or my work space. Like Sue, we use Shutterfly to make photo books. My kids like to look through those and we've given some to grandparents a couple of times.

    Most of the young families I know still display printed photos, especially those taken by professional photographers. Candids are more often digital only or put into photo books.

  • awm03
    9 years ago

    I bought a large digital photo frame that plays a slideshow and have a Canon printer that scans too. I've scanned favorite old prints and loaded them to an SD card to plug into the digital photo frame. The photo frame's a nice thing because the mix of pictures can be changed easily: latest vacation photos, my art photography, old photo scans, holiday or birthday themes. I keep the digital photo frame on all day so the photos are always on display. It's nice to walk into the room and pause a moment to watch the picture show or just to catch a fond glance of the people I love.

  • outsideplaying_gw
    9 years ago

    I still make some prints of big vacations DH, and I take and make photobooks on Shutterfly or Snapfish, usually for Christmas or other special occasions. I have prints of current ones of us, our kids, grands and dog plus a few various candids at home and on my work desk.

    Every Thanksgiving (or Christmas) we get photographs of the grandkids at our neighbor's log cabin. My DD is a great photographer and she takes the photos after our big dinner late in the afternoon. Last year all our kids used shots she took for their Christmas cards. We used some photos this year of our trip to the GC, Zion and Bryce NPs for our Christmas card. It was fun to do, but something I didn't think I'd ever do! Sure saved me some time though.

  • pattyxlynn
    9 years ago

    We fell into the same digital trap. I had an older cousin in a care home and I used to make her little photo books, with descriptions written out (she had dementia), to take when I visited, Christmas, etc. When she died, the books came back to me. Now they are under our coffee table and everyone *loves* to look at them.

    I feel a "collective we" will look back on this period and miss seeing pictures of these years when we are older, or when our grandkids want to see pictures of their parents and grandparents, as kids.

    I made my four year old Grandson a picture book using actual pictures instead of having one off the online sites make a printed book. He is in every picture and the companion changes. It has him with his Dad, his Mom (they are divorced), his other grandparents, our cat, our Boxer who was his constant companion but died recently and suddenly, our new dog, and our cockatiel. He considers the pets his pets. He takes the book to bed with him every day so he can look at it before he goes to sleep and when he wakes up (his words).

    My plan when we get our house situation completed, is to go back and get photos made of digital pictures. Then I will put them in old fashioned photo albums for future generations to enjoy (like I have with my Mom and Dad's).

  • martinca_gw sunset zone 24
    9 years ago

    No time for real reply. Just must say how deeply I connect with you on this, KSWl! There is a large part of me that wishes to return to the camera- to kiosk- to in my -hand prints-days.! Only 24, 32 or so to choose from, and in my hand, ready to frame or slip into an album. Sigh.

  • beaglesdoitbetter1
    9 years ago

    I had some printed b/c I had planned a space for them in our bedroom when designing our house. That was 2+ years ago, and I have a folder on my computer labeled "to print" with more pics to print. I haven't done anything with them for a long time. It just seems like a hassle to go through the process of uploading & ordering (but less of a hassle than taking film in, but I used to do that all the time).

    I change the screen saver on my phone and computer a lot to my new favorite picture, but that's not the same. I really should get some more pics printed.

  • ms-thrifty
    9 years ago

    sadly photos have become something to show others on your phone, post of facebook, etc. It will not be long before framed photos will be no more!

  • maddielee
    9 years ago

    We display a few framed family photos in one area of our home. I do change them out often as I don't think there is a lot of interest in seeing what our grandkids (or kids) looked like when they were babies.

    I do put the older pictures in albums. It's fun to pull an album out once in awhile and bring back the memories.

    I also get a kick out of Throw Back Thursdays on Facebook. My group of friends is great about posting pics from years ago. Fun to see because I don't see them often.

    ML

  • hhireno
    9 years ago

    I think that will be a swell gift! What a joy to see a picture, just there on the desk or shelf, available every time you're in that spot, instead of having to scroll through thousands on a phone. The rarity of printed pics, especially current ones, will also make it fun and novel.

    I print a few things every year to refresh frames and update my husband's office. I used to put a few on the fridge, in magnetic frames, but so far the new fridge only has a post card of The Great Wave off Kanagawa. I'm enjoying the streamlined look so I don't think I'll be adding other things. I might create a wall in the laundry room instead of the fridge.

  • Holly- Kay
    9 years ago

    I am sure your children will be touched by such a thoughtful gift! I think it's wonderful to have photos out where they can be enjoyed.

    You can tell I am an older lady. I have a lot of family pictures. I am glad that digital storage is so available because I have an overabundance of pics. My DD does a book for me every Christmas through Shutterfly. They have taken the place of family photo albums.

  • palimpsest
    9 years ago

    I don't think there is going to be a single tangible photo document of some children in the current generation at all.

    I know a lot of people who don't even own a camera, they just use their phone and if something happens to their phone, those are gone too, unless they've been posted to the web.

    They have also found that DVDs and CDs have a limited lifespan and even if you have data placed on these, there's an expiration date coming.

    Compare this to the photos and daguerreotypes my SO has of some relatives from the Civil War era and 78 rpm shellac records that can still be played. We are losing all sorts of tangible evidence of our existences.

    A few years ago I bought a camera and less than a year after I got it, I needed to buy a larger memory card and I wanted to buy another charger.

    "Oh", the saleswoman said "You will have to find these things on eBay because we don't carry them anymore"

    And I said "A year old camera and you don't have the equivalent of Film or Batteries for it anymore".

    "No, this is old technology"

    I said " I understand why you don't make the Camera anymore, maybe, but the stuff to make it usable? When you can buy Film and Batteries for cameras that are 70 years old?"

    No answer.

  • mboston_gw
    9 years ago

    Timely post - I still have photos made and in fact last night I had put in an order for a few from last Christmas, one of which is now in a frame.

    I also have spent the afternoon trying to find place to print a panoramic photo for my husband from his and our son's trip to Yosemite. I was going to do a panoramic canvas but in talking with hubs, he made the comment that he would rather have a photo like the ones I had made years ago from the Grand Canyon and the Tetons. Sorry, he may not get it!

  • awm03
    9 years ago

    I also think there's a loss in not having prints made. But on the other hand, it's a tough, hard slog sorting through a 1000+ printed snapshots trying to decide what's worth keeping. It took me four months just to roughly organize our snapshots into big manila envelopes by cities that we lived in. To go back and examine them for further organizing & weeding out will be very tedious. I wouldn't want to burden my heirs with that task. With digital pictures, I try to be diligent about keywording them. I hope that the next generation will save the ones marked "Family" and appreciate that they can eliminate the rest via a quick keyboard sort and delete.

    Another good way to view digital photos: blu-ray player with a USB slot. Plug in a flash drive and see the photos on HDTV with wonderful resolution and color. Recently we held Photo Night where we invited our son & DIL & a friend over for dinner and to view their photos of their trips to Australia and Germany. It was fun to see the pictures on "the big screen," and the hi def display made the pictures absolutely stunning.

  • rosesstink
    9 years ago

    I've never been one to display family photos so i guess I hadn't thought about it. The only ones I have are a couple of old photos of grandparents and a couple of snapshots of DH as a little guy that are tucked into my secretary desk glass. I do have a couple of landscape shots that we've taken framed and hung on the walls.

    I do like to look through old photos though so I think it's a good idea to print some. I wonder how the photo paper you can buy for laser printers will hold up over time.

  • kswl2
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Recently we held Photo Night where we invited our son & DIL & a friend over for dinner and to view their photos of their trips to Australia and Germany. It was fun to see the pictures on "the big screen," and the hi def display made the pictures absolutely stunning.

    What a wonderful idea!!!

  • marcolo
    9 years ago

    Friend of mine just lost all of his photos of his one year old son. He had trouble backing them up, put it off, etc. the kind of thing that happens every single day with computers.

    Meanwhile, I have a paper photo of my great grandfather, dating from the 19th century, hanging on my wall.

    You know, people talk about leaving photos to heirs. How is that gonna happen? How will people recognize one flash drive out of a pile of desk junk? What happens when a computer dies, or nobody can find a password? This is actually a big issue now for attorneys, financial companies and so on. There really isn't a system for preserving a digital legacy.

  • hhireno
    9 years ago

    On the flip side is a relative who prints every single shot. Out of focus, duplicates, bad composition, doesn't matter it is printed. And put in an album. When they die all those thousands of albums will get tossed without anyone having the time or inclination to search for a picture worth keeping.

    The same relative is transferring old movies to DVD, which is fine. But they have multiple copies made so everyone in the family can have their own. I think one DVD to share would really be sufficient and less expensive. We watched our copy once. It was long and boring. And just like the photo albums with no editing, bad shots, out of focus (maybe they need glasses?!).

    Besides the fact there isn't a third generation to inherit these, as Pal points out, there is an expiration date on any technology. Then what?

  • kswl2
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    "How will people recognize one flash drive out of a pile of desk junk?"

    Excellent point. I think we are losing our sense of history and family connectedness, not only because of the loss of photographs to digital, but also because of the over abundance of stuff in most households. When a dead relative's house is like most modern households with every room filled with possessions, going through all those to find one special photograph, or a significant piece of family history we may not recognize until we see it, is too much trouble. I am seeing a lot of people who can't or won't devote a couple of weeks to sifting through and cataloging the contents of a relative's home and just turn the entire process over to an estate liquidator.

    Maybe it is just part of the process of cultural evolution, but I think I'd rather see us detach from possessions instead of memories. No judgment here--- or if there is, it includes my own household.

  • palimpsest
    9 years ago

    I am going through this right now, divesting of the contents of my parents' house, which my father decided to sell after his ninetieth birthday.

    My parents saved everything, and they save it in a relatively organized fashion. But in a box of cards that included almost every card my parents gave each other and the ones we gave my mother, from about 1955-1975,
    I found my sisters' original birth certificates (and my dad's first grade report card).

    My oldest sister spent the entire five days ready and willing to throw everything like this away, without sorting it, at least quickly, to see if there was anything that was definitely important, or at least something someone might want to keep. I looked at every item that passed through my fingers. It took a little longer, but honestly, it wouldn't have taken away from the overall time she had spent sorting. It would have just cut into the time she spent taking breaks, working out at the local gym, "making sure we had something for dinner" etc.

    I finally put her on garage and basement duty where (because I had gone through a lot of this last year sometime) it was pretty clear she wasn't going to throw away anything like her own birth certificate because she didn't see the point of sorting. Overall, it may have been easier if she had not helped at all.

  • allison0704
    9 years ago

    I've always printed the better photos, even though most stay in a drawer. A few are framed here and there. Since DGS was born, I have been making him photobooks at Shutterfly (lots of free coupon codes to be had on those). He loves looking at them with me or DD2. I enjoy making them for him and DGD. I've been making one for my mom the last few holidays since she enjoys looking at them over and over again.

    I just brought home a box of my old photos from her house. I am going to borrow my sister's box and scan the ones that are important to me so I will at least have a digital file of those.

  • kitchendetective
    9 years ago

    Not only am I worried about the digital death of family photos, I am worried about the electronic death of literature. So much easier to censor/delete/alter from master digital texts than from physical books.

  • awm03
    9 years ago

    How best to preserve digital files is a topic that comes up frequently in the photography forums. Most serious photographers back up files to a portable hard drive, and some even have second and third portable hard drives to back up the first portable hard drive. Casual photographers really ought to give some thought about saving copies of their favorites some way: print, portable hard drive, whatever.

    I back up files to a portable hard drive but also burn to a DVD (cheap, available, will do for the short term). Seems to me more people are storing their back up photos in "the cloud" -- Google, Flickr, Amazon, for example. That's growing in popularity. It's a gamble how well these methods will work. But if you're diligent enough to back up and organize with today's latest technology, you'll probably be open to new technologies as they arise. So the files will get preserved somehow.

    It's tedious work, but then so is organizing a large collection of prints. At this point, thanks to keywords and date data embedded in the digital files, my digital photos are far more organized and searchable than my 20-years-worth of snapshots stored in roughly dated manila envelopes in two large Rubbermaid tubs. (And several hundred scattered through various albums & photo storage boxes -- forgot about those! oof, more work.)

    I'm counting on some heir inheriting the family geek genes to deal with this stuff :)

  • awm03
    9 years ago

    "So much easier to censor/delete/alter from master digital texts than from physical books."

    kitchendetective, that's a very interesting point. Hadn't thought of that (as I eagerly await my new Kindle).

  • kswl2
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Yes, kitchen detective.....that is worrisome.

  • awm03
    9 years ago

    Here's an overview on organizing digital photo files that pretty good:

    PC Magazine_Take Control of Your Files

    I like this author's suggestion to sort out your highest rated photos at the end of the year and print them in a book:
    10 tips to keep your digital photos organized

    And if you aren't using photo managing software, Picasa from Google is free & easy to use for both organizing & picture touch ups. This free software has a lot of fans:
    FastStone Image Viewer
    Photoshop Elements is another popular software. I like Paintshop Pro because it's easy to view the pictures full screen & rate them for sorting or delete them right away (and the picture editing features are excellent). All these programs are more capable than the Windows/Mac applet that comes with your computer.

  • Sheeisback_GW
    9 years ago

    Pictures are very meaningful to me. I do order prints for display. Every few months I seem to switch some out for new favorites. I have a few tabletop frames, but the rest are in the hall. This side with the shelves hold b&w, and the gallery side is all color.
    {{gwi:2135665}}
    {{gwi:2135666}}

    I've heard people say photos sometime blend in and you no longer see them. I love photos of my family and friends and I 'see' them many times a day. Other people also seem to enjoy looking at them. Of course our house isn't open for big events or meetings where strangers are viewing them.

    I take a lot of pictures. - Over 20,000 last year with my camera (not phone). I usually narrow down (itâÂÂs hard!) to a few special ones from the event or day to print. IâÂÂm behind again. ItâÂÂs a never ending thing kind of like laundry.

    I considered using my favorites for one large album I'd create at the end of the year - saw it first on DearLillie's blog. I just donâÂÂt like the idea of the photos printed in a book vs. having the individual pictures for some reason.

    I sure there are others, but Lakeside Collection has a 1600-photo organizer case. (link) ItâÂÂs not pretty, but it would eliminate a bunch of bulky photo storage. Use a label maker or even painters tape and a sharpie to make the cases. I have some in photo albums, but I have to draw a line for storage. The dvds or cds I have hardly ever get looked at and they wonâÂÂt last forever.

    My parents had two large boxes of pictures of us growing up and it was always fun to go through them one in a blue moon. I canâÂÂt imagine not ever printing or backing up photos!

    I think it's sweet you printed those photos for your kids. Even if they're not super goosey about displaying the photos, I'm sure the memories and the thought behind it will make them smile.

    Here is a link that might be useful: storage cases

    This post was edited by sheesharee on Thu, Dec 18, 14 at 16:56

  • kswl2
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    That storage case is wonderful, Shee, I am ordering it for our photos to organize after the first of the year. Thank you for posting the link!

    You are clearly serious about photography, that is obvious from your volume to the lovely display set up in your gallery hall. When our children were small I had a hallway very similar to yours and did the EXACT same thing--- framed prints hung on one wall and frames standing up on display shelves on the opposite wall, only this was in the nineties and my picture ledges were glossy white crown molding lookalikes, not the lovely clean wood ones you have. Our next house did not have a good display place, as the hallways were very wide and the ceilings talL. My photos would have been lost. So I picked out the ones I really needed to see as touchstones, bought nice frames, mostly silver for the bedrooms and wood or metal for the library, and have cluttered desks and shelves and bedside tables with them. Our current home was similar, with no good display place, but I found an old fashioned looking display carousel from Pottery Barn (purportedly modeled after ones used to sell postcards) and that has been one of the most fun and accessible ways to enjoy our photos.

    I hope our kids will appreciate the photos as an outward expression of their bonds. They go through periods of closeness followed by months when they don't see or contact each other much. My only sibling died unexpectedly at age 46, and my DH's family is not at all close (we see more of my brother's now remarried widow and my nephews than we do of his sibs and their kids.). I know everyone is busy, but we do make time for what we want and need....I am trying to give them a gentle reminder that there will come a time when their family will consist of each other.

    This post was edited by kswl on Thu, Dec 18, 14 at 23:26

  • mboston_gw
    9 years ago

    Since GS was born in 2009, I have taken many pictures of him with my camera. I also taken photos of the butterflies in my garden and the hummingbirds and other birds that stay around my yard.

    The first Christmas after my GS was born, I started making a calendar and I use photos from the previous year. For ex - Jan 2015 calendar photo is one I took from Jan 2014. So each month I can see how he has changed from the year before.

    The butterfly and hummingbird pics I use for presentations I do at schools and I have made some collages with them. Also had 3 printed on canvas of my favorite butterflies. I want to do more this spring.

    I love sitting in my living room and looking at photos of my husband's family from the 1800's till 1990's. I have a few of my family but more of his. Since I am into genealogy, they mean alot to me. Even my GS asks who they are and how he is related to them and he is only 5.

  • Holly- Kay
    9 years ago

    KSWL, I am also gently reminding my children that the day will come that they are each other's family also. I have been so fortunate that my children are always with us on the holidays and I hope that they will all continue to gather as a family when I am no longer the anchor.

    When I bought my DD china for Christmas I imagined her using it through the years and thinking of me when she sets her table, as I do my DM and DGM when I set mine.

    Another thing to consider with pictures is to note the people in the picture on the back. I have a very old photo album That is 80 to 90 years old. I know most of the people in it from looking at it with my DM over the years but no one else in my immediate family will know them. The problem with this particular album is that even though it is in remarkable good condition the little corners that keep the photos on the page may well be fragile so I don't want to attempt to remove them. I will have to write on paper the names so in the future my family will know who they are.

  • kswl2
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Good point, Holly-Kay, about identifying the photos--- not for the current recipients but for their relatives down the line.

  • Elraes Miller
    9 years ago

    Remember the famous picture of Clinton and his "protege" standing together in a crowd with her first in line? The photographer wrote a short (very important) comment about digital photos. He does not use digital and said if he had, that photo would probably have been deleted. He realized when the commotion came about that he had seen her in one of his film photos. Made him some big bucks. The point to his writing was that so many digital photos are deleted without thinking clearly at the moment as not having value, where film is kept in storage. We never know when a photo is worth a thousand words regardless of the moment. And history can be lost.

    I no longer print my photos, it is far less expensive to have them done at Walgreens, etc. than use ink which heads down hill quickly. And it costs a lot more to replace ink than having them printed for posterity.

  • kswl2
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    The photos arrived today and I put them in frames and am wrapping now! I have seven or eight to give to each child and five for my mother and I to share-- I'll let her choose the ones she wants and keep the rest. DH was so happy to see this project and we shared some sentimental moments remembering the places the photos were taken, most on family trips the past five or six years.

    I'm making a pact with myself to take more photos and have the best ones printed on a regular basis. We'll be out to dinner and the symphony tomorrow night, and the arts center has a fabulous tree I can use as a backdrop--- all three kids, DD's fiancé and my mom, the whole "fam dambly" as Gilbert and Sullivan would say :-)

  • sochi
    9 years ago

    My DH is a pretty serious photographer, he does back up most of his photos.

    We don't print and hang many pictures of our kids, now 7 and 10. Every Christmas we do a calendar and a book containing photos of the previous year. These books in particular replace photo albums of my youth.

    The impressed with the quality of the photo books. Here are two pages from our 2012 book, family vacation shot - I have to say I prefer this type of photo book at a photo album with snapshots. Tidier, easier to manage, allows for different size photos, plenty of room for text explaining the shots. The books can be as big as you want, including dozens or even hundreds of shots. Our 2012 book has about 75 pictures, including vacations, birthdays, candid everyday shots, etc.

  • kswl2
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I have considered books but their utility is limited once the children aren't living in the home to see them.....and if you have more than one child, none will eventually receive a full set of books.

    What company printed your books, Sochi, and how is the binding? I purchased a limited release book of photos through an affinity group (school alumni) and after two years the threads holding the pages came away from the spine. It was $75 and very cheaply constructed although it looked really nice :-(

    This post was edited by kswl on Sun, Dec 21, 14 at 14:33

  • alex9179
    9 years ago

    When I was little, one of my favorite things was to look through photo albums at my grandparents, or through the drawers of photos.

    I've been remiss in printing photos. I did put together an actual photo album of the first trip we took as a family. The kids love to look through it. I have printed pictures of the second, but no album. I have digital of the third, no prints/album.

    Thanks for the reminder of the enjoyment and tactile pleasure they can bring.

    I should be more proactive. A computer virus wiped out so many of the pictures I took in those first few years after the kids moved in here. I'm hoping to find a genius who can rescue them from the hard drive. I made some CD copies, but not of everything.

    When I asked the first mom for photo albums for the kids I was surprised to see exactly one that was taken of the youngest before they came to us. His hospital pic. 14 months of life with one photo. Many in the albums are repeats, of her growing up, other relatives (we're relatives so see that side) and taken on the visits she had later.

    For the photo/timeline projects that they do in elementary, we have a few hand-drawn milestones for each kid. I treat it matter of factly, but inside I'm upset for them. My parents didn't take a lot of pics, but I can find something for each year of my life, somewhere.

  • sochi
    9 years ago

    Kswl, we do three books per year, one for us the other two for the two sets of grandparents. The grandparents books will one day go to my two kids. Our books are printed through Apple. I'm very impressed with the quality, we've been using them for five or so years.

  • neetsiepie
    9 years ago

    My kids know I like prints, so they will have great candid photos printed out and framed to give me as gifts. They know they always make me cry.

    A few years ago I got in to scrapbooking. It is a way for me to create a heritage, a story for future generations. I can tell a story with the photos. I've made several for gifts and they've always been greatly appreciated. I've found that by doing it that way, I can toss the crummy photos, crop them and highlight the best or most interesting.

    I've been thinking of doing some of those photo books, too. My DD2 makes a lot of those-and some day I might do digital scrapbooking, then print the pages. But I like doing them the old fashioned way, with actual photographs, not from my printer.

    Like music on vinyl, there is just something about an actual photograph that you can hold, turn over and read what has been written on the back. I mourn the day that is lost to society.

  • kswl2
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I almost missed this in the NY Times, an app that creates a memory time capsule for you. Of course, it is still all digital......

    Here is a link that might be useful: Memoir, app that guesses your fondest memories

  • kswl2
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Sochi, thank you for that recommendation to use Apple for the books! Your advance planning sounds as though the kids will all end up with a sull set of books---- nice :-)

    I guess this digital-to-self published book revolution has come too late for our family, there are too many old photos to go through right now and we don't really have enough new pictures of them annually as adults for a book. But perhaps someday many years from now I will scan in all our old photos and print books myself on a 3D printer!

  • outsideplaying_gw
    9 years ago

    Thanks, sochi, for the reminder about the Apple books. I have not done one but I have seen them and they are quite nice. Will have to try one myself!

  • pattyxlynn
    9 years ago

    I guess I'm a sentimental old fool (at 53, LOL). Here is my experience...

    I have a few picture books printed online and they are great. However, IMHO, they can't compare to actual printed (or developed) pictures.

    I was tasked with writing a biography of my M&D's life, and believe me, it wasn't short! To do this I used verbal accounts from my M&D; a few thousand slides from my M&D, GP's and Great A&U; hundreds of photographs; my Great Aunt's daily journals; and tape recordings we sent from overseas to my GPs'.

    I digitized and transcribed almost all of it. Even though the slides were decades old, the digital quality was amazing. The scanned photographs, even the old, old, B&W's, were generally good quality. I only used a few pictures that were taken with a digital camera.

    The best part of the whole process was the obvious telling of their life story by my parents to me. As an adult you hear stories you weren't aware of as a child or wouldn't have been privileged to.

    The second best was handling the old photographs. Actually feeling them in my hands, turning them over to see if there was any writing on them, thinking of all those who had looked at them before me. Right up with this feeling was the handling of letters and my Aunt's journals. It's as if I could re-touch family members deceased through the pictures, letters, and journals. The nostalgia cloaked me with love when sifting through the pictures, holding each one in my hand and remembering.

    The biography is now complete and published. It's an amazing story and there are pictures, journal excerpts, and even conversations from the tapes that were transcribed (like when my sister was born and my Dad got the other four kids' reactions and my Mom talked to my Grandparents right after the birth).

    This is a long winded way to say that I prefer, much prefer, holding and looking through actual photographs to looking at the pictures printed in a book. If they are in a photo album, you can still take them out, look at the back, handle them, scan them, kiss the faces of your loved ones, hold them next to your heart. It's just not quite the same, for me, when it's a picture printed on a page of a book.

  • Boopadaboo
    9 years ago

    DH makes videos of the year to music every year. They are wonderful and we watch them over and over. He includes Pictures and videos we have taken from the year.

  • Sheeisback_GW
    9 years ago

    I've been meaning to ask about this since Christmas....

    Did they like the photos?

    And thank you for the kind words.

  • kswl2
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thank you for asking, Shee, the framed photos were very well received by the three children. It occurred to me as I was ordering the pictures that my mother did not have any photos of the children as adults that were not graduation pictures, so I had some made for her as well. Instead of wrapping hers I displayed them on the dining table on Christmas Eve, around the floral centerpiece. She was very taken with them, even more so when I told her that they were one of her gifts! They were a very meaningful present for each person and I am glad I took the time to choose, order and frame them.

  • kellysar
    9 years ago

    My first grandchild was born a few months ago. I visit DGS twice a week and take lots of pictures. I also download the cell phone pictures my DD and DSIL send to me. Every two or three weeks I upload the pics (between 50 and 100) to CVS Photo. I get three sets printed - one for me, one for my daughter, and one for my mother, and itâÂÂs quite inexpensive. Since my mother is a little distance away, I have her set sent directly to her local CVS for pickup. This has worked well for my family and forces me to keep the pictures organized on my computer. I love the storage box Sheesharee recommended and plan to order a couple.

    Boopadaboo - I was wondering how your husband makes his videos. I would love to do that.

  • Boopadaboo
    9 years ago

    He said he uses Windows Live Movie Maker. It is free. You can add photos, videos and music.

  • kellysar
    9 years ago

    Thanks so much, boopadaboo! I can't wait to try it.

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