Organizing and Loving our Photographs

This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of my girls, and I am so happy that I found it.

I have spent the better part of the last two weeks organizing our digital photos.

Prior to me taking on this project we simply uploaded our photos and stored them in folders labelled with the upload date.  Because we have 3 cameras, this led to pictures from the same event ending up in different folders depending on when we cleared off the different cameras.  It probably goes without saying that this made it incredibly difficult to find all the pictures from one specific event, or a specific photo that I was looking for.

Now things are so much better!

I organized all the photos by year, month and then event.  So, for example, photos from our trip to Ottawa in November of 2009 are organized by: Year: 2009; Month: 11-November; Event: Ottawa.

This new system is working fantastically for us.

While this was undoubtedly a huge project (much more so than I had originally anticipated), it was so incredibly worth it.

And I learned and was reminded of a few things along the way:

1. I LOVE photographs.  Of course I knew this, but as I sat at my computer for hours sorting, labelling, and organizing our photos I was transfixed.  The memories, the changes in my girls from when they were babies to now, the smiles and laughs, unforgettable past events....seeing these pictures reaffirmed for me how much I love photographs and how incredibly precious they are. 
2. We take an incredible number of photographs.  And we have taken the majority of these since our girls were born (not such a big surprise!).  Before the girls there were vacation photos, and the odd random shot of everyday stuff, but after the birth of our girls, our photo-taking exploded exponentially.  It is fantastic!  I am so happy that this is the case and that our girls will be able to look back and see their pasts in these photographs.  
3. Organizing our digital photos in a way that makes sense for our family was essential.  This has made looking back and finding specific photos much easier; which after all is the point - to have our photos accessible and easy to share.  In working through this project I have found treasured photos that I want to put in frames and display around the house, pictures that I need to print and send to grandparents...and now I know where they all are and sharing them will be much simpler.    

And speaking of finding treasured pictures that are too adorable and need to be shared, here are a few of my favorites:

This is my oldest daughter, Bridget when she was just shy of one year old - so hilarious!

And this is my youngest daughter, Claire, enjoying her cake at her first birthday party.

Aren't these girls the cutest? 

How do you organize your digital photographs?