“I don’t know WHY anyone could take the time to do that without going crazy!”

or something along these lines:

“I will never take the time to tag and keyword images because my system works, I scrap what I need and I know who the people in my photos are.”

I wish I had a time machine to transport you all to another place and time, 100 years in the future. Yet I don’t have the power to do that…

About the closest thing I have is a story – one experience of many that hits a home run in the ballpark of WHY the work we do in our photo libraries today matters.

A few years ago my mother-in-law and I were shopping at an antique store in Central Utah. Closer to the front of the store she spotted an old album that read simply, “Photographs.” On the inside we found several pages of beautiful heritage photos – most likely from the early 1900′s.

The tragedy was that these were orphaned photos – lost from the family they belonged to – in a dusty photo album on some random table in an antique store.

The photos are of very real people – with highly interesting bathing suits – priceless photos I would give anything to have of my great-great-great grandparents in their younger years. Yet they sat in that store, orphaned and anonymous. I wanted to adopt them.

My mother in law bought the photo album as a gift for me. I brought the photos home and have treated them just like I do all my other inherited photos of my family. However, when I look at this album, I feel sad. Sad about the stories never told, the people in these photos I will never know and sad for their great-great-great grandkids who would treasure them and probably will never find them.

Which brings me back to you and I and that trip into the future I would love to take you on. You might think that you know who is in your photos, your kids know who is in your photos and so you are ok.

WRONG

Quite frankly the people who will find the most value in your photos, your layouts, your right now present moment don’t even exist yet – they are about two to three generations down the line. They are the ones that will wonder about who you are, how you lived and what mattered to you.

The truth is my friend that, just like fine wine, our photos, thoughts and stories gain value as they age over time. Your story, your life, your moments and your memories captured through the lens of your camera matter.

With the valuable tools of digital metadata they become priceless instead of overwhelming. Priceless if you document the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN. Priceless if you use ratings to share your favorites so they know the memories that were most important to you. Priceless if you just take a little bit of time now so they can have those priceless memories later.

We all take classes and buy products to organize our scrapbook rooms, our digital supplies and lots of other things in our lives. Yet we often put our photos lower on the priority list.

So again I take you to that future – three generations down the road – your great grandkids aren’t going to care about your supplies being organized. They won’t even care about your stickers, papers, etc. What they will care about is being able to know more about your photos – why you stopped time with your camera. The stories behind your images. They will want that connection with you and I sincerely hope you give them that gift.

I want you to take a few moments and imagine these orphaned photos were your people. What would it mean to you to have them? How much more would it mean if they came with stories and information?

I hope you’ll find the time to give your posterity the gift of you.

I used to spend hours masking off trim and doors to protect them from paint when I painted walls.  I never paid much attention to the paint brush I used to paint corners and edges, I paid more attention to my masking job. Yet when I’d pull up the tape after painting, I’d inevitably see tiny pieces of paint bleeding through. Over time I thought that was normal.

Fast forward a few years and I had a conversation with my brother-in-law who had once painted professionally. I asked him which tape was best for masking and was surprised to learn he never used tape. He explained,

“It’s all in the brush.”

I learned that day that it wasn’t my technique or masking process, the secret to less stress and a better paint job was all in the tools I used. So now I have a Purdy Cub. It’s allowed me to paint close to 3000 linear feet of trim with perfect lines and no tape.

I love this brush because although it is a bit on the expensive side, it saves me so much time and money (that blue masking tape is pricey). No more masking trim to paint walls and then masking walls to paint trim. I just paint. It allows me to quickly and efficiently get the job done. It’s the right tool for the job.

Which brings me back to digital organization (you know I have to go there).

Sometimes we hang on to a tool or software or process because it’s all we’ve known. 

Sometimes we hang on because we don’t want to spend the money to make a change.

Sometimes we hang on because it’s what everyone else is doing and doing something different is scary.

Sometimes we hang on because we subconsciously sabotage our efforts for success, making things more complicated than they really need to be.

I’ve done all of the above and more.

It’s about life design. We each only get so much time. Do you want to spend it frustrated, endlessly organizing? Or would you rather make memories? I choose to make memories.

In order to have time to make memories, I have to have software, process and workflow that capitalizes on the tools of technology to efficiently get the work of organizing them done. I have software that works with the way I think. I also have a workflow that combined with my software allows me to spend time with the people I love doing the things I love most.

Sometimes finding photo flow comes down to centering your flow around the right tools.

Don’t worry if your tools and process are simple – what matters is that they work for you.

Remember that.

Remember that the most important piece of memory keeping is memories. Center your photo flow on the tools and process that support you and use technology to give you more time to make memories.

To borrow from a favorite saying, the truth is that when it ‘s all said and done, no one is ever going to say, “I wish I spent more time organizing my photos.”

Those of you who are Finding Photo Flow will know that I consider myself a family curator, not a genealogist. This is becoming even more real to me as I work to find flow with the photos and stories I have inherited, placing them with the correct family members and matching things up, guessing years, etc. It really is as close to a mystery treasure hunt as I ever have been.

My biggest mystery so far? Where the above photo was taken and when. I am seriously considering breaking out the face recognition to try to match up faces. My best guess is my great-grandmother’s family. I am sure I’ll figure it out as I catalogue the stories of their families and organize more photos.

Then there’s this photo that thankfully my great-grandmother wrote on the back the following: Dave & Min Farnsworth. Dave was Susan’s brother…

That’s a start but what about their children? I am sure there are people related to them I don’t even know who would love this photo… So I go to the only place I know to find clues – Ancestry.com.  I find Susan Jane Farnsworth on my family tree and then find her parents.

After locating her parents, I notice a green leaf on a profile and click on it to review more hints and find another person who has documented these people in their online family tree – I can see my Susan Farnsworth and also a brother named David.

After further exploration of the hints on other individual trees, I find that David did marry an Esther Minnie and they had ten children. The amazing thing is that the children in the photo match up perfectly with their oldest six children : Edna Alta, David Jr., Philo, Edwin, Lindon and Roy. The toddlers are dressed in kilts as was tradition with their heritage.

The more I studied their names and birth dates, it was easy to approximate the date of the photo to be about the Fall of 1896.

Another story unfolded as I looked at the names of the children, The youngest son on Minnie’s lap is named Roy. On their family record it shows a son named Ray and another named Roy born on the same day. At first I thought it was a duplicate record for the same child, yet after further research it was revealed that Ray had passed away just a few weeks after being born. Roy & Ray were twins. I have had this photo for years and now after a little digging around I know so much more of the story.

It is truly amazing that because of technology and websites that people are collaborating and sharing and together we are all learning more about our roots. It may seem a tiny thing, but now I feel like I KNOW these people. I think of Minnie and how different and more difficult her life must have been. I think of the grief of having twins and then losing one.  I think of the morning before this photo – getting those two wiggly toddler boys dressed in their kilts…

This photo has become more than a group of faces to me – these are REAL people who lived and I’m related to them!

I think sometimes we live so much in the day (as we should) that we can’t see the importance of our lives – who we are – what we are learning and growing and doing right now – and how much that will mean to future generations.

I’m 100% positive that on the day this photo was taken Minnie never envisioned a great-great-great niece searching the internet digging up clues to discover more about her family. Yet I did, and I loved every second of it and I’m so grateful to know more about these sweet people.

I know life gets busy and it seems so mundane and not worth recording. And yet I still have to ask you – whose Minnie will you be?

However, you’ll meet people who come pretty darn close.  Cherish them always – for through them you will learn more about yourself than you ever could alone.

You’ll most likely encounter an amazing and intense feeling people call LOVE.  Count yourself lucky and blessed!  Remember every moment.  There has never been and will never be another who will experience it exactly the same as you.

There will be days you feel like you are flying.  Remember what encouraged you to spread your wings.

Trust me, when times get hard you’ll need to remember how to grow them again.

Don’t worry, you’ll always find them because soaring is in your soul – it will always be part of who you are.

If you are fortunate enough to have children in your life, cherish them.  Share your perspective. Chances are there is no one else who can touch their hearts quite like you.  They need your love, guidance, perspective and laughter.  Even more important, they don’t have to be your own.

Somewhere in the everyday of this life REMEMBER that there is no one else who can capture  your experiences.  It’s up to

Remember… time is short – technically we don’t even really know how much of it we each have left.

Go out and capture the moments while you can.  Share how you see this beautiful and wonderful world.

Show life through your lens.

Through your words -

Through art -

Through music that blooms from roots planted deeply  in the most fertile soil of your soul -

Forget that nagging voice in your head that says, “Not yet, it isn’t good enough,” because your work has more meaning than even you can see in this moment.

Today is the day – do something to share your view on your one and only wonderful life.  Because when it comes to living, breathing, loving and sharing – there’s simply no one else that can take your place.

Reviewing the photos I was quite surprised to find a lot more of me than usual.  This is what happens when you send four women on a trip and three have a camera.

As I looked at the images I must confess that I stressed a little – wishing I had lost 20 pounds before the trip.  Really, I did.

Then the longer I stared at this photo with my four siblings  (it was the first time we had been together with my mom in years) I realized something.  These moments were priceless treasures and I just needed to embrace my imperfections – because life is just that – perfectly imperfect.

Sure I wish I was 20 pounds lighter and my face looked younger, but this is me, right here, right now in my life.  If I don’t document it, I’ll never get this opportunity back.  And who am I to judge what makes a good photo?  When I look at photos of the people I love I don’t care about anything but seeing them there and remembering the moments.

So the next time you shy away from the camera or are tempted to delete an imperfect photo of yourself, don’t do it.  Have a zen moment instead of a freak out.

It is only by accepting and forgiving ourselves of our imperfections that we can grow.  Cherish your one wild and crazy life – it is yours and no one can take it from you!  Accept yourself where you are and look forward to what you are becoming.  Time is so limited – we should treasure every moment.  That means getting more of us into our memory keeping.

Will you do it?

Products in layout: Papers: Michelle Martin Laurel Papers, Leora Sanford Home Kit, Title quote by Ali Edwards & Cathy Zielske (chat freebie from Designer Digitals).  Lightroom photo template and Avenir font.