I used to be obsessed with making photo albums. I’d carefully curate the photos, organize them, and print out captions and labels for life’s big events. In high school – mine, at least – it was de rigueur to bring your album to school after a special occasion (Prom, our Marching Band’s trip to Disney World) and share not just your photos, but your skill at preserving and arranging said photos with the other participants.
We were like proto-scrapbookers.
You best believe my year in France is preserved in a big, archival-quality scrapbook. Three, in fact. I may have every ticket that ever crossed my travel-hungry little fingers. Oh, and I made this freaking incredible scrapbook for my great uncle that was a walking tour of my university (where his father, my great grandfather, also studied). Man, that thing was ace.
Then everything went digital.
OK, things were kind of digital when I was in France – I’m not that old – but I wasn’t quite there yet. I got my first digital camera my senior year of college. Fun fact: it was a Cannon Elph and I paid $100 less for it (in 2004) than I paid for my Cannon DSLR in 2011. Gotta love how the price of technology drops.
So I don’t really print photos off anymore. I sort them on my harddrive, back them up, post them to Facebook, send them to friends… but no more albums.
I’m not really sad about that (thought the tone above was admittedly wistful). Digital means less “stuff” for me to keep.
In fact, I’m thinking of deconstructing some of those old photo albums. See, I have this fancy photo storage box (from the Container Store! Complete with sub-dividers!). Lately, I’ve been toying with the idea of pulling my photos out of albums and keeping them in the box instead. They’d take up less space that way.
Heck, I could scan them. Then they’d take up even less space!
Will future-Helena ever want to revisit these albums? I’m torn. Part of me thinks, “well, you took the time to make the albums…” while the more-pragmatic (and noticeably more-accountant-like) part is screaming, “SUNK COST! Throw the crap out!”
So tell me: how do you keep your older photos?