Ni Hao Y'all

when east meets south

a confession

My name is Stefanie.

And I have a problem.

I take way, way too many pictures.

And then I don’t quite know what to do with all of them.

I’ve now run out of photo albums.

And I have stacks and stacks of pictures,

waiting for a home.

But when I see things like this lovely butterfly,

or my ridiculously ripped husband,

or any of my adorable kids,

or really, pretty much anything…

my resolve to cull down the number of photos I take…

goes right out the window.

And I’m afraid I’ve dragged this blog, and y’all, with me.

To anyone still looking at this seemingly endless abyss of photos,

I apologize.

one family outing + over 200 pictures = too much.

My only hope is that my children will appreciate the fact that, in place of scrapbooks and journals,

they have lots and lots and lots of pictures of themselves. In their youth.

When I was a kid, there was one lone picture that, good or not, stood for an entire event.

10th birthday? One picture.

Prom? One picture.

First car? One picture.

Many events weren’t even documented with a lone photo.

So, I guess I’ve taken it upon myself to change all that for my kids, whether they like it or not.

One 4GB memory card at a time.

Comments

  1. OK…I don't have as many photos as you…by a LONG shot, but if I did…..
    I would organize them by month (which I do) & then by child (if possible). I would use one of those web sites like Snapfish & create each child a yearly photo book for Christmas.
    I do one each year for our family, but if I planned better, I could do one for each child (I only have 2).
    My 2 cents worth…..

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  2. Once everything went digital, I also lost control. No longer did I have to think "Oh, I only have 24 pictures on this roll. I have to make them count". I just snap away, at ANYTHING. I also hope the kids will be appreciative- they'd better be, right? 🙂 And seriously, no one will EVER tire of looking at your pictures. Your family is just precious! And the picture of the hubby? Yea, uh, hmmm, well, uh….. 🙂

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  3. Oh girl … we share the same addition. I cannot help it. But unlike you, I haven't printed a photo in over 3 years. I need a plan to get better organized so I can pass along these treasured photographs to our kids someday. Keep me posted on your strategy!
    Love & Blessings,
    Kim

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  4. Oh my goodness I just keep laughing at every line you've written here. And I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you…because I know how you feel. Truly! I used to say it was because I only have about 10 pictures of Lilah during the first 18 months of her life and I'm making up for it now. Well, they may have feel for that at the start, but I'm not fooling anyone anymore – I'm just plain obsessed, err passionate I mean!! …about both my daughter and my camera. 🙂

    I love your pictures, keep it up!
    Jill

    PS – I don't print them!

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  5. Digital photogr. is like CRACK! It's awful!
    But here was my solution. Once a year, I push 1 button and my blog becomes a book, a.k.a. an instant family album! I take out several post that my kiddos and I won't care about in the future. But it is SO SO easy and pretty affordable too.
    Then to continue to sustain my photography/blog addiction-I took pictures of the book and blogged about it. That's really bad I know, but folks asked, so here it is-
    http://nancyvnjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-book-its-good-thing.html
    KEEP taking the pics! Keep writing about it. Your kiddos will love love love your words and images when they are grown.
    Nancy-The Crazy 8s

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  6. RIGHT. THERE. WITH. YOU. and digital scrapbooking is not the answer. Who has time anymore for paper scrapbooking (not any of us with more than 2 children that's for sure)? I live in fear that my hard drives (yes multiple) will crash. I even live in fear of my back up hard drives crashing simultaneously with my main drive…those are my nightmares.

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  7. I totally understand! I actually got in trouble last year at work because they were having trouble with the computers. They traced it back to me!!!! Gasp! I work for a school system (4th grade teacher)and I had more pictures on my computer than EVERYONE in the whole system combined!!! Yeah well I can't help they all have ugly kids!! Hee! Hee!! Hee!!! My friends all made fun of me and told me they would send me to AA for pictures.

    I had to DELETE almost all of them!!! Now that is mean! Now I am being watched like a hawk at work! One little mistake and they jump all over ya! Hee Hee Hee!!!

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  8. I would definitely recommend photobooks, you can make them quickly and get so many photos in them and they are much thinner than traditional photo albums.

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  9. I, too, take way too many photos. I have a problem too! Mine are all waiting in Winkflash to be printed because we ran out of money to print them all! I am pretty good about getting them labeled and into the album in a timely manner though. And OMG your hubby is ripped. Really, a father of that many and a beautiful wife like you, how in the world does he find time to work out and what is his workout scheme and, more importantly, can he teach all those tricks to my hubby so his abs can finally match his muscular arms and chest?

    Reply

  10. Who can blame you??? YOu have a plethora or beautiful subjects just begging for that lens to point their way…

    Carry on…carry on…

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  11. I'm all digital now. I LOVE blurb.com and make a yearly "scrapbook" with Blurb. My 2009 was (hard-bound 8×10) 300 pages with 1650 pictures. All for the price of $85. I love blurb.com. They have a blog to book, but I think it requires too much after editing. But to scrapbook my 5 million pictures, and to make books for the grandparents, I go with Blurb. That's just my plug.

    Reply

  12. I think any of your photography blogging buddies have the same problem…but if that's a problem, call me an addict and slap me into rehab!

    Reply

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