When my children were infants, we had a professional photographer come to our home and photograph them. We had three sets of the photos made, they were sort of a collage. Very beautiful.Very expensive,too. One collage for us, and one for each set of grandparents. When my DH parents were both dead, we got their photos back. Nobody wants them. My two kids have no interest in having their own baby phoos. Our photos are on a wall in our family room and will remain there. The "extra" photos are in the attic.

I would put them in an album.

The point is the photo, not the frame or the display.

I would want to keep them, so that some day their kids could see them. But they wouldn't be something I would ever want to display.

My folks have a nice collage of us kids, but I would neer hang it in my home. I'll hang my own kids. Hanging pictures of me would feel weird and narcisstic.

But I would keep the photos themselves.

I'm always impressed at how Martha Stewart can locate so many pictures from early in her life--her mom must have been really good at saving stuff like that.

And now that I'm a grownup, I don't have that many pics of me as a kid. But I would like some--in an album. Or in a box that I could get out now and then to look at, or could go to if for some reason I needed a baby picture (contest at work, for example: "name that baby")

There are also times is has been a great source of encouragement to me to see how cute I was as a baby or a little kid.

I second Talley Sue, put the pictures in an album. If you like the frames, keep them and put something else in them. If not, donate or sell. Make space for some art that you really like to come into your life!

Thanks for the feedback. Tally Sue, I would put the pictures in an album except they are huge, blown up that I can't crop to fit an album. There is one of DH when he graduated university - I don't know what MIL was thinking when she bought such a huge version. All the frames are, well, not worth keeping except for the fact that they are protecting the picture.

The photos of my DM and DF graduation class are really long - they are the kind that you see that line the halls in a university.

I guess the next time we move I'll probably thrown these away just because they are so awkwardly large. I can probably take digital pictures of them to store. I do have space in the basement storage cabinet for them right now. I guess like Jannie, I'm storing them to avoid dealing with them now. Kids don't want them and I don't care to hang them in my house. Otherwise I'll do as Jane suggests, donate the frames to Goodwill.

Sky

It sounds like you've taken a good long look at the pictures and they're not particularly great pictures of your family. No one wants them, and they can't be conveniently downsized to an album because they are awkward sizes. The frames are not something you'd want to reuse. With all this in consideration....

I GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO TOSS!!!

Free up space for the great pictures! Every family has a few.

We have a really cute studio shot of my dad at two with his teddy bear... circa 1930s. Wish my grandparents had gotten a picture of Mom at 5 with her cowboy pistols.

Definitely find a way to preserve them, if not in albums or archival boxes, then on CDs. Your children may not care about their baby pictures now, but someday they or their children or grandchildren will. I have only three black and white photographs of my grandmother who died when I was in my teens. I often look at that posed photograph of her in her wedding dress and wonder what her life was like, what she was thinking, or if I see a family resemblance. I look at the 1940's candid picture of her in her garden, and feel connected to her, guessing at what she was doing that day. Generally, I am not someone who saves things, or is especially sentimental. I have only one large manila envelope of my three children's drawings and certificates and a few report cards. But photographs are too precious and too revealing to just toss. They can document so much about the styles and attitudes of the times, not to mention your family history. They don't take up that much space. And if you really don't want those oversized class photographs, some collector on ebay might.

This is exactly the reason why I try not to get more than a few pictures during a portrait session or anything bigger than a 10x12.

We got stuck with one of dh's huge baby pictures. I think it is a 16x20 or something like that. I'd love to print the picture out for a scrapbook and then get rid of the huge one. My family has a few like that too. I think I'll just pass them off to my siblings after I make a smaller copy. Knowing them, they toss it.

How about having them professionally reduced to maybe a 5x7 if possible? Even an 8x10 would fit in an album.

My grandparents are starting to divide out pictures to everyone and I received a manila envelope full of pictures- mostly me but some with them and other family. I'm still not sure to do with them. I don't care for the wall of family pictures either. I really cannot bring myself to throw away pictures- I agree with Pink Overalls posting about them being a connection and history.

I did just purchase a new scanner and received a really nice digital photo frame as a gift. I thought about spending a weekend scanning and cropping and putting everything onto a memory card for the digital frame.

My brother recently put all of these old family photos of us on a CD and is sending one to each of us. Now my husband gets to see me with my first Toni home permanent as a little kid. We all enjoyed looking at the photos, but I don't want them on my wall either.

Your post made me laugh because I was a mommy and weak and my brain went to mush at the same time as yours, and I got HEAPS of cutey pics done, you know the baby sitting in the suitcase with a firemans hat on ecetera ecetera. The pics are cute as they are my babies but not 300 of them!!

I have so many I am going to crop them right down and scrapbook them, I have an album that I have done for each of my 3 kids, and even if the pics are big, I will use them and not do any journaling or use too many embellishments. The funny thing is, I have way more prof cutey pie photos of my first daughter, which were less with the second baby and dwindled with the third. By then I much preferred taking my own candid shots. Hope this helps.

I am facing a similar problem with large boxes of photo's of my mother's family as well as baby photos of myself and my brother. One box includes lots of photos of one of my mother's cousins who was like a dear uncle to me, but it's when he's young, in the military and surrounded by folks I don't even know. Part of me says, but they're historic!

Others are clearly my main ancestors, and while most are not labelled, I think with a bit of time I can identify, maternal grandmother, g-father, great g-mother--perhaps a dozen key family members. My plan is to do that very simply in an album mostly for me, when I am still alive and perhaps one day the "matriarch," and not worry whether it'll get tossed when I die.

Both my parents died within the past 5 years. I have found that as some time goes by, I am finding it easier to "let go" of objects and photos--that is, I can now see how to save a few representative things, whereas right after they died (at different times), it was like I needed to keep a lot of that stuff close by. So I'm glad I didn't toss a lot of photos right away, since later I might have felt I made a mistake in the midst of distress. Or, if I had determined to catalog everything back then, I would have compulsively organized too much stuff. Now I think I can tackle it with a better idea of what is the purpose of keeping some representative photos.

Plus I have a better sense of how my own household "stuff" is so ephemeral and yet can be so burdensome to my kids, and am seeing this coming with my MIL and FIL's home chock full of stuff.

A big problem with photos is that when you have a lot of poses of the same people, but folks you love (kids!), each image is a bit different and seems precious and "priceless". Yet, if you only had a few of them, you wouldn't have lost sleep wishing you had more, usually.

So--here I can give advice better than I can act myself--if you have ANY reasonably representative photo of DH as a child, or any of these other folks, that might give you all the excuse you need just keep a few of those and don't worry about the ginormous framed things. If anyone is ever interested--and kids do often later enjoy a photo of Mom and Dad as kids, or in "old-fashioned" dress--it only takes one or 2 images and they are MORE enjoyable if in a small easily accessed format like a small album.

I would have had much less problem becoming the keeper of a few family albums than many boxes of loose photos, so I'm thinking my kids may be the same. Most kids will reject actually taking home photos & albums while we're still alive, I reckon, because the parents are the keepers of the flame. Later they may feel differently, at least about their immediate family.

So the key to me seems to be, keep some tangible memories but keep them fun, few and not burdensome.

jane_the_renovator, thanks for your permission.

pink_overalls I will toss when I figure out how to preserve the "picture" for the future. And yes, the frames are nothing special but right now they are protecting the pictures so they aren't damaged. I think after the big decluttering I'll come back to these and see if I can take digital copies myself. You're right about pictures are also historical snap shots which is how I see my mother's and father's graduation pictures - very formal. I could try ebay.

adellabedella, once those hormonal changes reverted back and the brain gelled I never bought those fancy packages again and all the larger sizes went to MIL who appreciated them so I have the easily stored smaller sizes to store. You know, once the novelty of a new baby is worn off those ginormous baby pictures look silly, especially when the subject is old enough to be a parent. LOL

groomingal and marge727 , I do think I'll try to put them on a CD for storage.

sunshinebub, those photography places know who their target audience is - new parents of first babies. LOL

frankie_in_zone_7 - I have boxes of pictures too. Yeah they are historic, definitely. None of mine are labelled and who know who many of these people are? But they are fun to look through. Maybe at sometime I'll edit my collection, but right now it's not a problem with storage and it's not a huge collection.

I forgot to mention I also have a very old brownie film projector with film of myself and family as children. It's in it's own box. I probably should have that put on a CD too, but I'm too lazy to deal with it right now. I wonder what the projector is worth on ebay?!?

Sky

You know, I just had one of those rare moments of brilliance for which I'm rarely known. I think the next time the kids are home together, we'll all sit down and go through the pictures. They can add labels to the faces we remember and, as a group, make decisions on which duplicates to toss. That should be a fun family activity. Of course I may end up with all the pictures back in the boxes again. LOL. At least the kids will know what's in the boxes.

sky

One thing to remember about old photos--they "wear out."

Because they are intended to be mementoes to only a very few people, actually. And when those people are gone, there's no sense in keeping the photos.

A very few historical family pictures is really enough.

Keep a couple of things in mind before making your decision: digital format stores nicely and is convenient; however digital formats have changed greatly over the past few years and are expected to continue to change... think about those irreplaceable -and unreplaceable- Polaroids. If you do go digital, wrap the original photos in acid-free paper and then vacuum-pack so your great-grandkid has a chance to see them.

Which is another thing, if you don't want these and your kids don't want these; maybe they aren't worth keeping under any circumstance -especially if they are out-of-focus or photos of your cousin's first dog. But if you do keep a few photos, be sure they (each and every one) are well-labeled and dated. DH has albums with pictures of many, many relatives -- some are marked 'Uncle Joe' or 'Mom's Aunt Sue'... no one now alive has the vaguest idea who these folks were, and although I've heard that Uncle Joe's real name was Donald I don't know his last name, and none of the cousins today know who was the "Mom" that had an Aunt Sue. Now me, I have no photos of any relatives, because mum was sure no one would ever be interested in the past -- and when I was in my twenties and thirties, I surely was not interested. So mum disposed of everything before she passed on. Nowadays, I would dearly love to have at least one picture of my parents or grandparents.

And the last thought: If the group pictures are dated and you know the details (where, why, when the pic was taken), you may find an organization that would like to have them. Genealogical societies may interested if the people are well identified; and there are historical sites that collect dated photos of the world around us.

talley_sue_nyc - thats true and a good way to look at pictures, as ephemeral.

meldy_nva I will edit carefully and if there is anything that may have historical value, I will contact organizations which may be interested. I don't want to do what your Mom did, I do want to keep an edited and properly labeled collection for the kids when the time comes to pass them on to them. None of my pictures are labeled with any significant information either.

sky

I am the person who was given everything my deceased parents had. I recently went through all the old pictures I had. I determined that many people are people I don't know, haven't met and were from my parents lives pre-me. I googled the peoples names of who I thought they were and sent envelopes of pictures all over the country.

I decided I was done being the archivist. When I'm gone nobody will know who these people were and nobody now cares who these people were other than them.

I've done the same with my kids baby pictures. I've gone through and sorted them out and am making albums for each of them. They may not want them, but thier futures spouses may and thier children may. No matter who wants them, they won't be something I have to worry about preserving in the future.

Blue Velvet, that was really nice of you to send pictures to people who you didn't know, but had pictures of their relatives. You're right, I have no interest in being an archivist and I really only want to save what is of interest to my children.

Sky

I have to laugh, as I'm not very sentimental about my own photos or even those of my children, but I collect group photos (pre--1930) and have quite a few panorama shots of sweet girl graduates in stern expressions and Gibson Girl hairdos or bobbed hair and rolled stockings. If you've got really great semi-campy photos from the 40s, 50s, or 60s, you might think about parting with them on Ebay.

Is it wise to put all my Photos on CDs? Won’t they soon be a thing of the past as well? I put several years on CD’s already, and now we don’t even have a CD player, or VHS player.

Scan your photos to your computer or an external memory device. Also, buy a digital phot frame like a NixPlay, then you can send pictures from your computer or your phone to the frame. It doesn't get better then that.... unless you send them to your TV!