do this.

If someone were is ask me "If you only had time to make ONE photo album this year, what would it be?"  My answer: Make an in-a-nutshell album about your life.  Where you live, what you do, what your house looks like, what your kids look like, and then add some nutty facts about yourself. 

When we went to Ireland four years ago, Mike is the one who said "You should make an album about our day-to-day lives to take with us.  Even though there isn't a language barrier, a picture is worth a thousand words and it might help us connect with more people."   Did it ever!  We were amazed at the number of times we whipped out this little album and made a conversation more interesting.

The fun (and fascinating) thing about this album project is that "ordinary life pictures" are sometimes something we don't even have in our possession.  The advent of the cellphone camera has helped, but ask yourself --- do you have a photo of the outside of your house?  Your car?  Do you have a nice photograph of where you work - and spend hours everyday? 

I grabbed our "Made in 2009 About Us Album" when I headed out the door to a 125th Anniversary Celebration of Delta Gamma recently.   While conversing with sorority sisters, I was shocked by how out-of-date our little book was - in just 4 short years!  There was no mention of our 2+ year house renovation... or Mike's cancer journey... or the addition of 6 grandchildren!  Below are some of the pages from our REVISED About Us album.  You can view the whole thing on this link:

Revised ABOUT US StoryBook

If you meeting someone for the first time and only had a few minutes to tell about yourself --- what would you say?  These are the sorts of things that go in an ABOUT US album.  

I always try to grab this little album when we are going out of town.  I was glad I had it in my purse when Mike was having his cancer surgery in St. Louis.  It turned out that Mike had to be on a ventilator for three days... the nurses that tended to him day and night knew nothing of the man they were caring for.  I made sure to leave the little ABOUT US book on the tray table next to his bed each night so that when he couldn't talk or communicate --- the book could for him.  I wanted the nursing staff to know about the fine man they were caring for.  Because of this simple collection of photos... they did.

thoughtful words.

"If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph."

 

Got this cool quote from photographer extraordinaire, Wyn Wiley.

Isn't it amazing to ponder the power of photography.

 

I used to regularly tell my clients that even taking a photograph of a child (or adult) esteems them, because it is communicating that 'you care' and 'you want to remember this moment together'.

 

It is thrilling to ponder that our photography (even with our phones) communciates a lot about us.

 

The wonders of photography run deep.

How are you protecting your treasure?

 

 

 

year review album is in my hands!

 It is hard for me to contain my excitement about this!  988 photos from 2008 in one fabulous 100 page digital StoryBook album!  988 photos saved from cyberspace with stories written beside them. It arrived this week.

2008 was the year that I stopped printing my photos with the digital age --- so that is where I started.  2009 is next.  Then 2010, 2011, 2012.  Now that I have a plan with these amazing predesigned pages,  the task  does not seem overwhelming.

Every time I get an album back I am always amazed at the quality of our Creative Memories albums. WOW.    This time I opted for the LAY FLAT option, and I will never go back.  (Why haven't I always done this?)  The quality of the paper and the colors and the inks is amazing!

There are more details in earlier posts about my favorite Wedding Gallery 12x12 and Photo A Day 12x12 layouts.  The real beauty of the YEAR REVIEW album to me is that this is where our "everyday family life" is captured... I have managed to keep up with getting vacations and weddings and big stuff in digital albums, but it is the precious, everyday, random stuff that eluded me.  Remember that this is not all the photos I took in 2008. That would be 4389 photographs. (Really.)  This is the collection that formed from creating 8 pages per month. This is the plan that made the project do-able to me.

The reason I wigged out when my computer crashed last December was because it was our "everyday ordinary family life" photos that were left hanging in cyberspace.  I am all about capturing 'perfectly ordinary' for images we almost forget to snap... I want to remember silliness at a family dinner or when Mike dressed in the girls clothes after folding too much of their laundry... I want to remember when Kiley drove the car into the house... and when the ducks started pooping on the porch... I want the quiet, tender moments of my daddy's hospital days as much as vacations and weddings.  A Year In Review album helps capture the gift of all those perfectly ordinary days that make a year... and life.

My quest will be to show this album to as many people as I can... to inspire them to retrieve their precious memories from the computer.  Remember the thought provoking saying "Memory Keeping begins with the printed photo..." This is the essence of it. Images on a computer are at risk - both to computer crashes and to changing technology. The best way to preserve an image is to have something that you can hold in your hands.

Want to take a peek at this album all done?

Karen's 2008 Year in Review Album

Want to make your own version?