Well I don't have 40 albums..5 huge ones, plus several smaller, the rest are at my Mom's..and then it all went digital but I keep to these albums like crazy, and kids love them too, actually same as I love to read books and don't like to read from the screen-I like looking through albums, and think "the digital should be printed too, because it's actually very easy to loose it all one day"

When we built our custom shelving I knew it should have plenty of space to accommodate these huge, heavy albums.

But I understand that five is one eighth of forty, so..

I also have this thing with throwing out photos or tearing them or anything..or drawings even..or old letters..I'm a bit too sentimental, and if has an image of a person on it, especially somebody I know-I'd be stuck with it. We moved a lot, and all the ephemera goes with me, even though letters are twenty years old and I'm not in touch with many of whoever wrote them anymore. So I'm not the greatest type to give advice on it all, except these old photos might very well become your family's source of joy and fascination one day, I know my uncles etc hunt old photos and scan them and upload onto family tree on internet, and for sure wish there were more.

Various sizes of school portaraits is a different thing..that's why at some point I started ordering very simple packages, and then-when my kids said they're fine without these-stopped from ordering them altogether.

Because it's awfully hard to actually get rid of them

Now though my MIL wants them, the spares I mean! To put in frames and all. Asked me to see what I have and what she can take. What's funny-she's not their Grandma by blood, she just got very attached to my kids, it's my second marriage.

So maybe you have some relative who would want spares?

I toted around boxes of pictures and albums for years. Finally realized no one, myself included, ever looked at them, so I started to purge. And the more I purged, the easier it got. Whe needs 100 photos of that trip to Venice? Pick the best one or two, for the memories, and ditch the rest. And yes, digitalize. It's pretty easy, and safe, to back everything up on an external hard drive or flash drive.

Agree, I’ve been purging and converting everything to digital photo books, yes it’s a job but as stated above we don’t need ALL of the photos we took (pre-digital it seems we found the need to keep every photo we took!), and scan in the old ones which are probably yellowing with age (there are companies that will do this for you if you don’t want to, and make photo books which are like the fraction of the size and bulk of the traditional photo albums. I figure this project is gonna take me about 5 years but I’m slowly making my way through them...

A few years ago I made my mother one of the photo books from Shutterfly. Yes, they’re much smaller and compact. But I wonder if I’ll be able to throw out my actual photos, especially ones from so long ago. That seems to be my issue.

One of the best things I’ve ever done was send all my old photos to be scanned. I absolutely threw out most of the old paper photos, after offering them to my sisters, who took a few. I have an old 1st gen iPad I put into a frame. It plays the photos on a random loop And now my photos are displayed all the time, not hidden in a box somewhere.

In in addition to being stored on the iPad, I have them backed up on a Cloud server, on a hard drive and on a couple of usb drives. With this multiplication of backups, I feel my images are just as or more secure than they were in a box in my closet.

I might add that photos I take now with a digital camera are downloaded, edited, put into photo "books" on my computer, and then used as wallpaper on the PC, random shuffle setting, so I actually get to look at photos more than I ever did when they were in albums!

Not every image ever captured is sacred.

I spend a lot of time yesterday on the internet trying to educate myself as to what are the different alternatives to preserving the best of them. I even have old negatives from my FILs WWII experience. All of my family photos from my childhood are in slides and my own kids are all in 4x6 photos.

I did do a first round of purging to get rid of the non de script images of things that are better left to real photographers, people who are not relevant to me, and those that have nothing to commend them, and the multiple school pictures of which I still have 20 of each left,, but I still have a lot of things left.

Then, there are some photos that came before me---ancestral photos.

I had a flatbed scanner that I used to scan many of the slides until both the scanner and the computer that it was attached to expired. It is a very time intensive job.

When you look for one of these scanning services you see the price is usually about 2 or 3 images per dollar, but that can add up big time when you have a lot of them. Then, many of them are shipped overseas where the labor is cheap. The thought of my irreplaceable photos going over to some third world country to be scanned is not a comforting thought. It would be much more comforting to know that you could take them somewhere that is local and they would never leave that place and that you could deliver them and pick them up.

The photos that were culled have not been disposed of yet, not until I have finished the final project. I even sent some photos out to different family members and have found some families on Ancestry and sent to them some of the things that are not really my family.

I had an Aunt who had a colorful life and some of her things came from families that I had no connection to, at all. She had several husbands. From one of them were left these really beautiful and significant early photos of his family threshing wheat out in the Oklahoma panhandle. These girls are wearing "prairie bonnets" for real! I first made copies and then found the family on Ancestry and mailed them back to the family.

The first thing that most of us need to do is to go through them and do some serious culling out.

One significant thing that I discovered about a scanned photo is that, even if the photo is not one that you are finding value in, you can get some pretty interesting views when you enlarge that photo and isolate and crop different elements from it.

I was looking at scanned photos of myself through the years and it occurred to me that I don't know that person anymore. I went through a lot of them and enlarged and cropped out the eyes of these images to see into my own eyes from so long ago. I made a digital collage of these images.. It offered a profound insight into a self that I don't know anymore.

Some pretty interesting profiles can be drawn from the cropped images. Sometimes it highlights what you did not see about it as a whole.

Another story about organizing old photos--

Husbands father had all of these old photos of his experience in WWII as a tank radio man in Europe. They had been languishing about scattered in boxes and elsewhere until I gathered them all together and put them into some order in an album. Husband asks me where they came from! They had been overlooked all of these years because they were just part of a larger heap of stuff and were almost invisible. By gathering them and putting them into an accessible and organized format, it brought them out of obscurity.

His experiences mirrored the experiences that were reflected in the movie with Brad Pitt about that time and place. We watched the dramatized version and drew a new relevance from it.

Like many men of his time, FIL rarely spoke of the war. Some of these photos were ones that he sent back to his mother and sisters with a soldiers words scribbled across the back. He was only 19 years old! Maybe it was this experience that caused him to build such a hard shell around himself.

Wednesday morning wrote-

Not every image ever captured is sacred.

this!!

And anglo I too have boxes of slides from my father . I do have a desktop little slide viewer so I am able to see them. I did actually go through most a few years ago. There were lots of their vacations when they traveled and I tried hard to just keep the ones that were good photos of them in great locations. Often it would be scenery and or with other people that I had no clue about. Those were tossed.

I need to recite this Not every image ever captured is sacred.

We moved in July (downsized ha) and I have unloaded the many cartons full of albums. They are now mostly in a spare bedroom dresser. It's ridiculous I think and I have promised myself that this winter I will really tackle it. I guess I will offer the ones I am ok with tossing to my daughter.

As an aside, I have found that I sometimes do "preliminary work" where I toss the obvious tossable. Then I try to go through what remains with a more discerning eye. I also find that sometimes I don't share it with anyone and can be pretty productive that way. sometimes. wink wink

That comment made by Wednesday Morning, “Not every picture captured is sacred” is probably going to be recited by myself over and over. It is SO true. This morning I went through a box of my children’s school pictures. I saved one of each. I took a shot of a few with my phone and sent them to my son. His son is school aged and hopefully will get a kick out of seeing pictures of his dad at similar ages. I told my kids they are being tossed (all the extras) and if they want any I’ll save and send it to them. So, progress in baby steps

I should also add that I was part of the scrapbook rage. I have about 6. Two of them are Heritage books. Pictures and info going back to our great grandparents. I have my grandparents wedding invitation and even the printed menu. 100 years old! A few are our lives as kids grew up. They’re my treasured pictures. They will go to my daughter (who does want them). I just have to start somewhere with the rest

Salonva, I sure know what you mean about doing this on your own. My husband wants to keep EVERY picture from his late mom. Have NO idea who these people are, but he refuses to part with them!!

Another thing I noticed while cleaning through non-digital photos, remember when we would get film developed and you got 2 copies? Why did we find the need to keep these? Lol

Karen, one of the biggest problems I’m having. I have pictures in my albums. Then I look through these boxes and I swear I’ve seen some before. So, I try to locate them in the albums. So tedious!!

Why did we get double prints in the first place? I think it is because we were offered two for less of a price per than to buy one. It was probably a pretty clever marketing scheme to get us to buy more. Believe me, someone made a good profit from it.

I have almost finished the first pass through my collection. I may sort through them at least three times before I feel that I have reached whatever goal it is that I have.

I think that goal is to get rid of the non de script, the unimportant, the bad, the redundant, the hurtful, and the other peoples' kids. . What I hope to be left with is a valued collection of treasured images that have been elevated out of the clutter to their proper status in documenting myself, my life and the same of those I love. They will be in a format where they can be viewed, preserved and easily stored and appreciated.

My images are all personal type of things. It must be a completely different situation for those who practice photography as as art form or a hobby.

Last evening I binge watched the Kondo series on Netflix.

I am not a fan of her, but it was interesting watching others deal with their excessive consumption and accumulation.

She always saves things like photos for the last. There is a lot of emotion in those.

What about the scrap booking phase?? My mom is/was an avid scrap booker. She has two book cases full. When she dies she thinks people will fight over them. Pretty sure my SIL will end up with them HAPPILY. I do love the professional look books one can make up on line and have printed. They are HOURS of work but very nice. I made one for each daughter for Christmas. They were less than THRILLED. ONce you look at them--what do you do?? I made them for their kids one day so they can see who their moms were as teens. Time will tell. When my in-laws died each of four sons got three boxes of slides and photos. We were to sort, digitize and make CDs for each other. LOL not one of them as even began. That was almost 10 years ago now.

Arcy I went though the scrapbooking phase when my kids were babies, thankfully it was only a phase and each kid only got one book. I had a company digitize all my mother in law’s slides and it was well worth it. They send you a box, you send them in and they send you back cds and also digital storage I think. Otherwise we would never have seen them again. Nobody has one of those machines anymore and even if they did we wouldn’t ever pull it out.

My sister has a different approach. When our mother died, she left behind a few boxes of old (and I mean old) family photos from both her family and my late father's family. She also left behind albums of her own RCAF service in WWII, and some photos and a scrapbook of a couple of my dad's voyages (he was engineer on an ocean-going tug). Sis took photos of my mom's younger brother, killed during WWII, to the tiny local museum where they grew up. Uncle Stuart's photo is now on their War Memorial wall. She took some photos of Mom's air force service to the aviation museum at the airport where she served. She took photos and memorabilia of my Dad's historic tugboat trip (yes, don't laugh, there are such events!) to the Maritime Museum in Vancouver. And she sent photos of my grandparents' homesteading days on the Prairies to the local museum back there, as well. All were delighted to have them!

I've passed on some photos she gave me of our maternal grandparent's earlier years in England to a local historian back there who has an interest in the historic house they lived in, and had previously written about the family. He's now added a bit more to their story on his blogsite, and even dug up some information we didn't know about, including a couple of photos. So, while I may not have my grandparent's wedding photo up on a wall, it and they are memorialized on line in an article he wrote about them!

Digitize the ones you want to keep (after you've done your sorting and purging). There are lots of services that do that sort of thing very inexpensively. I recently had a bunch of old slides digitized, and they just sent me a dropbox link so anyone could download them easily to copy onto a disk or flash drive. (By "anyone could download them" I mean anyone I gave the secure address to, like other members of the family.)

jmm, what an honor you graced your ancestors with when you submitted their images for historic reference!

Beginning in the last century we have amassed a tremendous number of preserved images of the world and the people. It leaves us with a peculiar view of ourselves that is unprecedented in human history.

Starting with my grandparents generation, roughly 1890s-mid century, we began to have the photographic images. Each generation had more than the last.

I have so many digital photos of my grandchildren!!! Now the digitals are beginning to demand some attention for sorting and preserving.

The issue with letting someone else digitize is we only need one or two of a given vacation for memories sake and I need someone who remembers to label and date them. Getting DH to the computer for this purpose is not happening so the box sits there. Unfortunately my in laws had no daughters. I am more than capable of scanning and collating them if I knew what they were!!!

Sighing because it is how many weeks later and I have done squat. The winter is flying by and this was going to be a winter project.

https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjjwvX2prbgAhWBnrMKHUR9AxEYABAVGgJxbg&sig=AOD64_255PN1HTamYQjtkZBfeyyHwXhEFw&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwjLpe_2prbgAhVjTd8KHQC-DV8Qwg96BAgLEBM&adurl=

I spent a full week on my photos. I bought 2 of these cases on sale for $15 each. I took all the loose photos and organized them either by events or years. 100 photos (more or less) fit into each case. I labeled them and they’re stored in my closet. I did go through my many photo albums too. I threw out all doubles. I labeled all albums as well. At this point I’m done. One day my kids will have to go through it all and keep or throw out what they want to. At least it’s organized for them.

Now, I do have to start on my digital picturns, but all I’ve really done is put them on a thumb drive. I backup my phone to Shutterfly so they’re there as well and I order Pictures once in a while from them. This project, for now, is done. Not perfect, but manageable.

Couple years ago I found a large unused photo album hidden away when I tackled the photos, I initially sorted the multiple boxes of photos into places and people into a single box then konmaried a handful of each category to put into the photo album leaving the rest in the photo box with the few photo albums left as they were. Negatives were tossed. Fuzzies were tossed. Duplicates were tossed.

This winter I've taken apart all the photo albums, discarded photos I didn't want such as the duplicates that that came back to me and multiples of the same family group. Then I sorted out the ones I really wanted in the album and am organizing by date. I dislike studio portraits so those will stay in the box.

Now I'm stuck and it's with an empty album with slithery photo pages and boxes of organized and photos needed to be slotted in. Am extremely glad the odd albums are gone with all those duplicates but it's a mess.

I also had multiple copies of photos on disc. Downloaded them to the computer, destroyed the discs and deleted duplicates then burned a single DATED copy so now they are in two places.

I am looking at all these comments and many of you have a handle on it, however you are frustrated and overwhelmed with the time it is taking.

Points That Are Great:

1. Get rid of duplicates
2. Get rid of negatives
3. Get rid of ones with thumbs in them
4. Get rid of the ones that are scenery but who knows where
5. Get rid of people you do not know
6. Organize in Boxes according to Event, Person or Year

All this being said it has still taken a lot time. My next step would be to scan and digitalize, again that is another step.

So would you pay for someone to do this for you? And if so how much?

A married couple I know go on long vacations where they take hundreds? thousands? of photos. When they come back they give them to a person who selects photos and makes a video/slide show of the trip. Then they invite family to come and watch. In other words, they don't even choose the photos for the show and they are happy with it. Not for me but....? These people are in Israel so I don't know if we have that business here.