Your story matters. It matters to you, it matters to your family, and it will matter to generations to come.
While it can be daunting to imagine writing your story down, much of it has already been documented through photos, which are probably scattered all over the place—stored on various devices, on hard drives, laptops and phones. And that’s just the digital ones.
The rest might be in shoeboxes, in your garage, and attic. Or they may be in slide carousels or in old leather photo albums with self-adhesive pages (which, by the way, are causing stains and damage).
How satisfying would it be to gather all your photos and organize them into a tidy system that allowed you to easily find the ones you wanted? So that you could create slideshows or presentations and even print books or create personalized gifts from them?
There’s no time like the present to put in a little bit of work—in exchange for peace of mind and the preservation of your family legacy through photos.
Every September, The Photo Managers, a community I started in 2009, holds in-person and virtual classes that educate and inspire people to save their photos. We work with professional photo organizers, photo retailers, and related companies to come up with an exciting array of activities. This year, we have 30 days of activities organized around four themes: gathering, organizing, story-telling and bringing photos to life.
› Sign up for Save Your Photos Month!
One of our photo manager members, Sue Triggs-Rhuda, runs Modern Memorykeeper, a professional photo organizing service. While working with a widow whose late husband had been a Holocaust survivor, she recently came across an entire trove of photos from Poland in the 1940’s.
“They were amazing records of these families, but they also had tremendous historical significance. And it was just this huge surprise to both of us that these photos had been sitting in a box in the attic all these years.”
“If we don’t preserve these, people won’t know about them.”
“I”m kind of bringing my clients into the digital age,” Sue says. “Once their photos are all organized, they can be displayed on Apple TV, you can post them on social media, you can do anything. But mostly, you have the peace of mind.”
Save Your Photos Month features 30+ pre-recorded mini-classes presented by industry professionals, many of whom I know personally. These sessions can prepare you with the know-how you need to tackle your photo projects—or even launch a business as a Photo Manager.
We hope you’ll join us in September for Save Your Photos Month. Sign up here!
Cathi Nelson, author of Photo Organizing Made Easy; Going from Overwhelmed to Overjoyed, is the leader of a global photo organizing movement. A cutting-edge entrepreneur and speaker, in 2009 she founded The Photo Managers, the leading organization serving entrepreneurs through training, a professional certification program, best practices, and a code of ethics that sets high standards for the rapidly growing photo management industry. She’s built a worldwide community and organization around supporting people in creating thriving businesses doing work they love. She’s been featured in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Real Simple Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal about how to organize and preserve the legacy of your family heritage through photos.
