Photos only last if somebody looks after them. A phone can be lost, a cloud account forgotten and a hard drive dropped. Keeping pictures safe is mostly about simple, boring habits that run without you thinking about them.
Before you start: make sure your phone is backed up. Deleting is easier when nothing can be lost.
Picking is a skill. Like any skill, it gets faster.
Priya Nair, Paperleaf print room
Make it a habit
The best system is the one you will still be using next year. Keep it simple enough that it survives a busy month.
Sharing is part of keeping. A photo that three people have is safer than one that only lives on your phone.
- Hand the camera to someone else
- Back up before deleting anything
- Leave the cover for last
What to look for
If you have too many photos of one day, that day probably mattered. Give it a spread of its own rather than cutting it down to one.
Make a cup of tea, sit somewhere comfortable and put the phone on do-not-disturb. The job goes faster when it does not compete with messages.
My mum reads the captions more than she looks at the pictures.
Leila, who writes every caption by hand
Start with what you already have
Keep the phone charged and the lens clean on days you expect to matter. It sounds small, but a flat battery or a smudged lens has cost more good pictures than any missing piece of equipment.
The bit about writing names on the back hit home. We have a box of strangers in our loft.
That is lovely to hear. Say hello to your grandmother from all of us.
Thanks for asking this, I was wondering the same.
My grandmother cried when she got the book. That is all I wanted to say.
I printed our first book after reading this and my daughter has not put it down since.
So glad it helped. Let us know how the first book turns out.
Any tips for doing this with twins? I end up with two of everything.
My grandmother cried when she got the book. That is all I wanted to say.
I printed our first book after reading this and my daughter has not put it down since.
I never thought about the light from the window. Moved the high chair and the difference is huge.
Any tips for doing this with twins? I end up with two of everything.
This is exactly the nudge I needed. My camera roll has four thousand photos from this year alone.