Photo Update

Now I know that people are just dying to know how things are going with the photo archiving, so I’m going to give an update. Things are moving along fairly smoothly, and I could be done within the month, but let’s not get too confident, that always leads to disaster.

We have over 3000 pictures on the hard drive, and not only does this present a burden to my operating system, but pictures often get lost in the netherworld of your computer when they are stored there, never to be seen again. Plus, as ridiculous as this may seem, the hassle of having to turn the computer on is enough to deter most people from checking them out.

Finally, you just can’t beat the enjoyment of flipping through a photo album with actual photos, not unlike reading a book versus reading it online or a digital book. Call me old fashioned... my kids do it all the time.

Either way, my goal was to get the pics made into prints, and I had a multi-pronged approach. Since I’d backed up most of the pics, they were no longer on the hard drive but on discs and a backup hard drive. This meant I had to locate them and gradually put them back on the hard drive.

Once there, I needed to sort through the ones I wanted to print. I tend to take dozens of pics of any subject or event, and then go back and take the ones I like. With digital, why not? It’s so easy to discard the ones you don’t want. R takes a different approach and takes the time to compose her shots, but I’ve find that with moving targets like kids, more often than not, when you hesitate, the moment is lost forever. I prefer to take lots of pics and sift through the garbage for the few gems.

This, however, makes the job of sorting more of a challenge, though it really just boils down to time. After uploading the pics, I make a second disc of the ones I want to print, then simply order them online for mail delivery or pickup. I use the Walgreen’s site, and it works well, though I tend to order 100-200 pics at a time, and I wonder if it strains their system. It takes a bit of time to upload them to their site, but not huge. Maybe 10-15 minutes, and then it’s done. I can’t tell you how much this has helped the process. I used to take the discs into Walgreen’s and upload them on site, but that meant driving into W. Leb retail hell.

Plus, they have photo specials every week, so each order is a bargain. The quality is fine, good enough for a novice like me. Though real photographers may still scoff at the quality of digital, for recording important moments in life, it’s perfect.

All in all, good fortune has thus far shined on us, so I have to pay attention to the signs and just go for it.. I have about 25 discs with about 100 pics, on average, on each disc. I’m up to disc 19, so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Of course, I still have to stuff the pics into photo albums, which will be a chore, but I’ve got all year to do that, right?

Until then, thanks for reading.