While waiting for my poor Canon G12 to be repaired, I have been busy working chipping away at the literally thousands of photos that have been piling up in my photo library. It's been challenging.
I've gotten a lot better at choosing "delete". Often I'll take six or ten photos capturing the same moment. Sometimes I love them all, for different reasons... but it's asking a lot of my computer, external hard drive and myself to save every last detail recorded by camera.
So delete, delete, delete.
I also try and delete the majority of "household" photos I take as well. I'm often snapping photos of the inanimate object - trying to capture a moment in what I am seeing through my eyes. A basket of yarn, flowers in the garden, newly thrifted dishes, a current sewing project.... I might choose one or two of those photos to post on my blog, to record that moment in time - but when you look at them in such a large grouping... it's overwhelming and unnecessary.
So... delete, delete, delete.
When I get down to about 200 to 500 photos a month (I organize by month and year) I feel satisfied in my housecleaning and send the monthly files to my external hard drive, the one that houses our whole life on "film". I also send the occasional photo to a separate folder on my desktop marked "Photos To Print". If I do actually print them one day. Perhaps the folder should be called "Good Intentions".
I do often wonder.... as the years add on, how many photos can one family possibly need? If I'm holding on to 200 to 500 photos a month... that means after five, six years we have collected thousands upon thousands of photos of our life. Doesn't that sound a bit extreme?
I'm curious to know, how do you collect, store and sort through your digital photos? How do you choose which to keep and which to delete? How many photos are you taking and keeping monthly? Do you feel like you have too many?
