I don't take this sort of photo very often, but I looked so damn good for a meeting last week that I just had to.
I have had cameras and photos on my mind lately.
Last month, I reminded everyone of the Photo Project of a year ago, in which we all challenged and encouraged ourselves and each other to be in front of the camera (not just behind it) over the holidays. Did you do it? Are you in any photos? And then the next question is, did you share those photos — on your blog, on Facebook, or elsewhere?
That last part is the truly hard thing to do. For the first year or two I blogged and was on Facebook, I didn’t post any photos of myself. Instead, I used a photo of a Picasso painting as my avatar, which I thought was clever, but really was just a big clue as to my own personal body image issues back then. Sad, I know.
I’ve been better in the past couple of years about getting myself into photos and then sharing them. In fact, now when we go on vacation, I insist that I get into photos every. single. day. That’s a huge improvement over other vacation albums, where I might appear once or twice over the course of several hundred photos. In fact, the girls now get a little tired of me asking them to pose for photos with me when we travel. I don’t care if they are camera weary; I’m the mom and it’s my prerogative to annoy them, right?
In another photographic matter, I’ve been trying to organize my photos in recent months — moving them from my computer to an external hard drive and also an online photo storage site. I’ve also been scanning old photos and creating albums for the past years. Yes, I’ve gotten rather behind on all this. I take so many photos so often that it gets to be a bit overwhelming at times. How do you organize yours?
My biggest photo project lately is the Eleanor Project. My friend Terry and I were inspired by this to create a website dedicated to capturing the beauty of the women around us. We believe that all women are beautiful, regardless of age, race, size, shape, or anything else. We’re rejecting the idealized and homogenized standards being put forth by Hollywood and glossy magazines and showing that there’s beauty in everyone.
Finally, I don’t know if you’ve seen this or not, but it’s probably the best thing I’ve seen recently: How to Make a Baby. Trust me on this one. It’s adorable and funny.
So that’s what I have on my mind today. Tell me: What have you done with photos lately?
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My photos are a mess. I use the same system my grandmother did – shove them all in a box. My digital photos are all organized by date (thank you technology!) on my hard drive AND a back up drive. I have started getting some of them printed out by taking advantage of specials on websites devoted to photo printing. I’ve also had photo books printed by these sites and they’ve all turned out great.
Yesterday, my husband took the camera from me while we were hiking, and he ended up taking a couple of very nice photos of me! I was so pleased with one I changed my blog banner!
Well, I naturally had to go look. And it IS a great shot! Look at that fanny! And happy anniversary.
(I forced my kids to pose with me at Christmas since they’re scattered all over the place now, and I try to sneak into some shots with my grandsons. It’s HARD to start liking pictures of ourselves, don’t you think?. At least for a few years, when we start appreciating how we USED TO look.)
I have a ton of photos of Sadie, and even a decent amount of Sadie and Dave, but soooo few of me! I’ve been asking Dave more often to take pictures of me with her, so I have that memory as well. And so will she!
I did it. I am always behind the camera, and generally do not like photos of myself. I never posted them when I first started blogging or doing FB. And then I thought about the message I was sending my daughters, and how they’d look back on family photos and wonder, “Where was Mom?” So, although I’d say I still am behind the camera for most photos because I enjoy taking photos, I try to remember to ask someone to get a group shot or one of me. Excellent post! Also, your outfit is baller.
I hate having my photo taken. I am not photogenic. My mom used to torture us as kids by taking FOREVER to take a photo. She still tries, but now I just refuse. Her usual MO is not to ask for a photo on the evening when we have gotten dressed up to go out to dinner but to wait until after we have finished loading her car the morning she is leaving. I am never showered and am in gym clothes. That’s when she wants a photo.
No. No way. I hate having her take my photo. I hate anyone taking it.
My husband and I had a photographer take some studio shots of us last spring. I sent one to my mom and told her this was it. The last photo she would get of me.
I am done.
That is TOO cute! Go–click on the baby link!
I’ve been sorting through some pictures and thinking about putting them in the albums…one of these days!
And am totally posting a photo of myself this week. Pinky promise.
I don’t have as many photos of me as I do of the rest of my family…but that’s because I’m the photo nut and take on average 6-20 photos every.day. But I have plenty of me. My husband is very accustomed to being told to take a photo. I just have to make sure the big camera is on the right settings. His iPhone is also handy. And I love the camera turn around on my iPhone. Decent self portraits finally! My kids are also big into taking photos right now. Of course for every 1 decent one I have to clean off 20 blurry shots of the floor, but that’s fine with me. Gotta love digital! (I also bought myself a Kodak Brownie and am planning to try out some actual film this year!)
My photo organization: I have 2 external hard drives for my main photo storage (none of my computers has a large enough drive for all our music, all our photos, and our documents). On those, files are organized by year, month, and then day: a folder for all of 2012. Within that folder, a folder for each month. Within each month, a folder for each day. The day folders also have descriptions of what was going on. I also upload everything to Snapfish, by month, or sometimes by event if there are a LOT of photos. This is more an emergency backup and so my mom can print stuff off for scrapbook pages she wants to make. I’ve done this organizing even with the family photos I’ve scanned in. Some of those are more general (1975), and some are specific (1975->December->1975 12 24 Christmas Eve at Grandma F’s).
Printing and documenting: Have you checked out the Project Life products by Becky Higgins? It’s a great way to get a ton of stuff into a cool “scrapbook” without actually scrapping anything. There are a bunch of different sleeves for various photo sizes and cool cardpacks (3×4) if you do want to write a short note about what was going on. I’ve been doing the full-on photo-a-day for 3 years (started the day the Girl was born). This year I’m going with a more weekly overview. And I’m going to pick up a couple of the childhood kits to do a book for the Boy, a book for me, and a book for Josh – mostly photos with a few words thrown in. The kids love to look at the books and I figure why have everything hidden away on the computer/in boxes? On top of all that, my mom is a traditional scrapper, so the kids have lots of those pages. And when we do big trips (like Arizona last year) I make a book on Snapfish or Shutterfly. There are always discount codes or even free offers around.
Whew! That’s a lot of info. Photography, and documenting our lives, is near and dear to my heart. : )
Oh – I almost forgot…
I’ve made it my mission for 2013 to tell at least one person each day (besides my kids) that they are full of awesome.
YOU, Jen, are totally full of awesome and I’m so glad we’re friends.
Since I was sort of laid-up over the holidays, there are very few pictures of anything; however, I am in the traditional post-Christmas Eve service/everyone still dressed up photograph. My MIL tells me (as she is taking the picture) that I need to not stand there next time… meaning semi-in-front-of my husband…. but that was too late for this year. Too bad. I shared the picture with everyone anyway. Maybe next year I will look thinner (both in actuality and because I might remember where to stand)!
I have remained conscious of getting into photos, so our vacation to AZ last spring has a few of me in there and I am glad for it.
I’m still terribly behind on my photo organization. I keep them organized by date on the computer (monthly) and I like bdaiss’ idea of making a yearly with monthly sub-folders. I do now have all digital pictures off the old desktop and onto an external hard drive. Now to back up what I have on my laptop!
I’m still occasionally working on the old photos, getting them into scrapbooks. Unfortunately, that normally only happens when I go on a twice-yearly retreat. I need to do more, more often.
I have definitely been more conscious and better about including myself in the photos.
Just after Christmas, I bought a little photo scanner (the kind where the photos go in with a roller, rather than a flatbed) and one of my missions this year is to get our pre-digital photos scanned in. We have boxes and boxes.
I also made a photo book of my garden photos, and then deleted most of them. I’m hoping to do the book (but probably not the delete) thing for many subjects.
One of the things that I really dislike is that I have so few pictures of Kiernan and me together. Especially spontaneous ones. I’m always the one holding the camera. At her First Communion last year I was taking pictures of her after the ceremony near the alter. Her best friends dad (an amateur very talented photographer) had me go stand by Kier so I could have a few photos together. I was so touched!!!
The How to make a baby photos are so funny!!!! Where do you find such things??!!!??? LOVE IT!!!
I am one of us with few photos of myself through the years. I drowned my camera over Thanksgiving and lost all the photos onit and few were taken at Christmas until I got a new camera – the few pix of me are sortof dark – taken in a bar!
I made my youngest take a bunch of photos of me and finally put a new one on FB & my blog.
My photo mission this year is to start getting my digitals printed and into my albums – which stopped around 2003…