Following is a post I wrote for the Library of Memories blog on BPS. I thought it was worth repeating here...
When I tell people that I love to teach others how to organize their digital photos and memories, I am often met with something like this, "I don't know WHY anyone could take the time to do that without going crazy!" or "I will never take the time to tag and keyword images because my system works, I scrap what I need and I know who the people in my photos are."
I want to grab these people by the shoulders and take them on a journey to another place, 100 years in the future. However, I don't have the power to do that - if I could, I probably would.
About the closest thing I have is a story - one experience of many that hit home for me about just how important the time we take to organize things today will mean in the future.
A few years ago my mother in law and I were shopping at an antique store in Central Utah. (I love shopping antiques with my mother in law because she grew up in her mother's bridal registry/gift shop in Mesa, AZ and she always spots the best deals - but that is a story for another day).
Closer to the front of the store she spotted an old album that read simply, "Photographs." On the inside we found several pages of beautiful, heritage photos, a few even had dates written on them - all with the same year - 1917.
The tragedy was that these were orphaned photos - lost to some random antique store. The photos are of very real people - with highly interesting bathing suits - priceless photos I would give anything to have of my great grandparents in their younger years. They sat in that store, orphaned and anonymous.
My mother in law bought the photo album for $15 as a gift for me. I brought the photos home and have treated them just like I do all my other inherited photos of my family. However, when I look at this album, I feel sad. Sad about the stories never told, the people in these photos I will never know and sad for their great-great grandkids who would treasure them and probably will never find them.
Which brings me back to you and I and that trip into the future I would take you on. You might think that you know who is in your photos, your kids know who is in your photos and so you are ok. WRONG. Quite frankly the people who will find the most value in your photos, your layouts, your right now present moment don't even exist yet - they are about two to three generations down the line. They are the ones that will find your memories priceless.
Priceless if you document the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN. Priceless if you use ratings to share your favorites so they know the memories that were most important to you. Priceless if you just take a little bit of time now so they can have that priceless experience later.
We all take classes and buy products to organize our scrapbook rooms, our digital supplies and lots of other things in our lives. Yet we often put our photos lower on the priority list.
So again I take you to that future - three generations down the road - your great grandkids aren't going to care about your supplies being organized. They won't even care about your stickers, papers, etc. What they will care about is being able to know more about your photos - why you stopped time with your camera. The stories behind your images. They will want that connection with you and I sincerely hope you give them that gift.
Today I took a few hours and scanned all the images from that book. I put them together in a slideshow. I really hope you will take a few minutes out of your day and watch it. Think about these photos being your great-grandparents images - what would it mean to you to have them? How much more would it mean if they came with stories and information?
Then think about what you are doing today in this class - it will be just as meaningful down the road and I promise you won't regret your efforts... enjoy! :)
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