Oh..me too! I haven't put a photo in an album for years. Will be watching this thread closely!
lots2do

I could go on and on about how to start but let me help a little by getting you going. First, get some acid free pens or markers and label the back of the photos by year ( or more specific date) and start sorting by person, or event or cat. Please use acid free everything as you are piutting them in albums. They fade if you don't. This way you will have them forever.

If you're having problems getting started with the task because it seems overwhelming, there are many techniques out there which could work well in at least getting you going so that momentum carries you through to the end of the task. Time limits ("I'm only going to do this for half an hour") help a lot. Just pick a time long enough for you to get your thoughts together.

Six years ago, I organized all my photos into card files, organized by person, trip, and family photos. DH, being as clumsy as ever, was looking for something one day and knocked the card files from their place on the top shelf of the closet to the floor. The drawers opened on their way down and all the photos were everywhere. It took me about 3 years to tackle them again. This time, I gave my kids their photos, which they were happy to have.

The first time I organized the photos, it took me one entire afternoon, which really isn't a long time. I had envisioned it taking me days. The second time was quicker and took only a couple of hours.

I realized when I organized my entire place last year that each "job" took a much shorter amount of time to organize than what I had expected. The mind, I think, makes each job much larger than it really is.

My photos are organized in photo boxes by year. I haven't scrapbooked in awhile, but when I was doing it before I'd just pull out the photos from the desired year and get started. Even if I never get another album completed, I love knowing my photos are stored chronologically. Every so often one of our children has needed a photo for a school activity and we found it quickly!

Sheryl

sheryl, I need to do that--just get a whole bunch of boxes to stick them in, and start putting them in by year.

I have also started a folder for each kid, of photos I think they'll want when they're older. Pictures of themselves, or their siblings, of them w/ dad or mom, etc.

I bought a letter sorter at Staples and labeled each slot with my subject. As I go through the pics, it's easy to put them in the correct slot as a first step. It helps to break it down into small steps....and realize it takes a lot of time.

So after reading your post on my thread, I came over to check this thread out!

It's funny - I have laughed at "scrapbooking" and never could figure out how folks could get that into it! But as I sat there putting copies of old family photos into an album, I realized, I have trouble remembering who is who! And I want DD to know who her ancestors were!

I cannot wait for my dad's next visit. Although I wont go scrapping hogwild, I do plan on getting some sort of nice pen at Michael's and writing on each album page who's who!

Talley Sue, after going thru the whole pile of 16 years of photos, here's what I ended up with: 1 box of 1990-1995, a box of 96-current (more of my photos are on digital now), and a box of DH's photos from the 70's and 80's. The fourth box holds the negatives, and the CDs that you now get with your photos when they are developed. The 4th box is only about 1/3 full, so there is room to add more!

I have thousands of photos waiting to be sorted, filed and/or scrapped. It's impossible to scrapbook all of them so I have purchased photo boxes for each catagory and am now sorting them, chronologically, into each box. It takes a lot of time but I think it will be worth it in the end. Good luck!
Sue

What a problem this over-collection of photos is. I think we have to be brave enough to toss some, keeping the best.

My mother had many high school friends, and she left me lots of photos of them. I really don't want them, but it's difficult to toss them.

I'm making two very small albums for my sons about my side of the family. I think the most helpful advice I got was not to worry about the albums being perfect, just get started and if things aren't in exactly the way you wanted it, it's ok.

This thread has inspired me to finish my albums.

I do think that less is more in photo albums. Rather than create a documentary, use the pictures that capture a mood or attitude that reflects the subject's feeling about the event. Or goofy pictures that capture the joy of childhood. Or pictures that show the specialness of Christmas morning. But not 15 pictures of the same birthday party. Digital cameras are a godsend.

the biggest problem w/digital cameras is that a lot of people don't print them out.

I've tried to "edit" my pics before I even take them. Take pictures of the important parts of the bday party--the faces, the cake, the Death Star piñata. The game if it's really great (I tend to invent my own; last year I had a carnival party for DS)

I can totally understand people who get into scrapbooking as a way of recording their own experiences; I have a friend who makes the coolest scrapbooks full of ticket stubs, photos, stuff she picked up on the trip, etc. But she doesn't use all the preprinted, manufactured stuff. That stuff, I can even understand, but I don't really approve.

I'm a little more 'documentary' in my theory than cup, but I think the documentary can be smaller and more focused. You don't need EVERY detail; just the really important ones. The parts of the story that you want to never lose. You don't need a pic of every present at Christmas, but you DO need a pic of that really creative wrapping job DS did for DD. Or the Santa present from each year.

...you reminded me of a funny story that involves photos, gifts under the tree, and my compulsively tidy and thrifty father (apple didn't fall far from the tree)...

Not too long ago my siblings and I (six of us btw. 40 and 50) were looking at photos of Christmases past (late 60's and the 70's). We noticed, oddly enough, that we got Toss Across two years in a row.
My Dad confessed. He'd watch to see which games grabbed our attention first, and would carefully sneak away with the untouched games, Mom would rewrap them, and they'd (or YOU KNOW WHO would) present them again the next year. "You never noticed. It saved a lot of money."

So, careful with taking too many pictures!

Loved the Toss Across story. When I was little, "Santa" would come again Christmas night and take away the really "good" toys,like the walking doll with the human-hair wig. And next year the doll would return, with a new hand-sewn dress. Eventually, Santa let her stay permanently.

Why do I find the annual appearance and disappearance of a "walking doll with the human-hair wig" a little bit spooky? LOL

Here's the difference (for me) between photo albums and scrapbooking:

Photo Albums: Shove every single picture in an album, un-labeled. Not much effort required.

Scrapbooking: Take only the best pictures, stick them on a page, label the page with the date. Take a half-good picture and cut off the bad part, and fill up the leftover spots on the page. More effort required, but I enjoy it.

Julie, that's my kind of scrapbooking. If I had time, I'd add notes--like, by the picture of the Death Star piñata: "we used a punch ball for the baloon, and hung it off the shower-curtain rod. DD helped with one of the layers, It only took 16 whacks (but the early whacks kept breaking the string; we ended up using a strand of duct tape) "

by the soccer pictures, "though she wasn't very aggressive about kicking the ball, DD was really good at staying with it. Look how focused she is!"

stuff like that

August - still haven't sorted all the photos. Maybe once kids and husband (teacher) head back to school?...

socks12345,
Hope you see this! I don't know where you live, but your state probably has a Genweb site.....a genealogy site. On many of these sites, people are looking for old school photos. Also, you could post on Classmates.com. I am sure someone out there would love to have your Mother's pictures! You can google for the Genweb site in your state and county.

jcs
I know how frustrating photos can be. Now I keep all the current ones in the computer. I have too many old ones to scan. What I did (still an ongoing task)is I tried to sort into different piles. One for each kid, animals, house and interiors, Mom and family, office, clubs etc. I still haven't finished. I got some regular notebooks at sales and a big box of top loading sheet protectors. Since I was an avid rubber stamper for a while I have loads of different designer papers. I'd gather what I could of maybe a particular grade school year and then glue those down with the acid free glue sticks and write the year on the paper. I'd slip that in a protector and then do another one and slip it in the back so they would both show as you turned the page. I now have a lot of fat notebooks. I found I had saved napkins from a first birthday party and invitations etc and I put them in too. When DS came in from Germany last year I gave him his to take back with him.
Just an idea that might help you along.
I get discouraged if I fall back into too much nostalgia.

I'm about ready to ditch them all and pretend we came from under a cabbage leaf! I just got done with a 12 days visit from my mom and my cousin. My mom is 88 and time is not being kind to her memory. She has decided she is going to divide the pictures a certain way, such as all of the picture of me in one group. That's not how the rest of us want them. We would like a good sampling of everything and make a copy for each of us. I don't want 50 pictures of me and no one else! I've also asked her to label things for at least 20 years. Just like everything else, she's going to get to it. I guess she thinks she'll live to be over a 100 or something.

I am frustrated and resentful that she wouldn't take the time to do it while her mind was clear. Really, most of the pictures will just end up thrown away since we have no idea who those people are and I'm not going to lug boxes of unlabeled pictures around for the next 30 years myself. My kids will end up thinking my memory is gone when I never knew who they were in the first place. Generations in my family are frequently 40 years apart, so these people were old when I knew them. I can't recognize what my great aunts looked like as young women.

We also just got a load of photos from my MIL's estate since my brother-in-law died. Unlabeled for the most part, although my DH does recognize some people. We have made a date to start sifting through this stuff and get rid of most of it. Our kids don't need pictures of their grandparent's friends. We'll just mail those to the people who are still living.

Gloria

Gloria, and Jcs
The photo problem is a big one in Estates. As I might have mentioned I practice probate law and we have a solution that solves the problem a little. The Executor puts together a pretty good selection and duplicates them for each sibling and then they divide up the remainder and throw out the rest. Photos of parents friends get tossed first, scenery seems to go next.Photos of the family pets aren't as popular as I would have guessed. Mostly the kids want old wedding photos, pictures of themselves as children with the family and photos of a few relatives they remember. We've learned to ask first if somebody wants one of the albums.
Oddly, digital produces less photos as I just keep mine in my computer. So even though I take more photos we actually print fewer of them. Maybe taking all these photos and keeping tons of them might just be generational with us--our grandchildren might not do it. I think we did it because we could include them in letters--I would bet that the letter writers have cut their output considerably. Remember when long distance telephone calls were expensive. If calls are cheap, its easier than writing. Now I have 80 year old clients who Email me, they don't have to look for stamps, etc.and you don't have to play telephone tag especially if you are in different time zones. I think we may be looking at a problem for Kodak stockholders.

This is a wee bit off topic, but I wanted to share a great gift and photo cataloging idea for those of you with children still at home.

Take a pile of 8.5" x 11" colored cardstock and print out a calendar from your computer and printer. Each card gets one month, so there's plenty of room to write on it. Be sure to add in all the family birthdays and anniversaries on the correct dates. Print one additional card with the year on it, and a nice border around it.

Now stack your cards like this... the year card goes on top. Next is a blank card. Then January. Then a blank. Then February. Then a blank, and so on through December.

Take these to a local print shop and have them comb-bound on the top edge.

Now, open your calendar to January and you will have a blank card above it (you can have a nice frame printed around the edge). Glue a 5 x 7 glossy photo of your kids taken in January, wearing their winter clothes, playing in the snow, or whatever is appropriate to the season. Turn to February and do the same. Summer months have pics of the kids playing at the beach, or in their shorts. December has a pic of the kids on Santa's lap.

This makes THE most appreciated gift you could give a grandparent! You will also love this calendar yourself. After a few years you will have a whole treasured stack of them, each labelled with the correct year -- a marvelous record of your childrens' childhood.