Summertime memories… Catching fireflies in a mason jar. Strolling on the beach while the sun sets on the horizon. Going to a baseball game to root for your favorite Little Leaguer or your professional team of choice. Splashing in the pool with friends, playing Marco Polo. Taking that family vacation in the old station wagon or minivan. Squinting into the sun as your mother or father (or you!) take the 757th photo of the trip. Ah… the summer vacation photos!
Are you someone who takes hundreds of photographs during every trip you take? Or have you inherited a big pile of vacation prints from your parents or other loved ones? Here are some tips on what to do with all those vacation snaps to give them more value and meaning for years to come.
Why do we take (and save!) so many gosh darned vacation pictures?
Personal photographs are typically taken at special times in our lives, and that includes vacations. We all look forward to vacations, whether they take us to a place where we have been many times or to a new adventure. They are filled with playtime, being with the ones we love, doing special activities, and seeing beloved or new and amazing sites. So it is only natural that we would want to memorialize such experiences. So we take tons of photos, trying to make those special moments last longer. And we often save those vacation shop. After all, the photos remind us about all the fun we had. And frankly, it feels good to look back on all those smiles and remember the stories that went with them.
Piles of photos of sunsets and scenery?
If you are like me, especially with the advent of digital photography, you end up taken loads of pictures for every trip. It’s fantastic to have those experiences that you can look back on. But let’s be honest: there can sometimes be too much of a good thing. After all, how many sunset pictures do you really need to keep? Or snaps of beautiful scenery? I am also guilty of taking photos of beautiful flowers, but really, how many flower pictures does someone really need?
Have you inherited a family photo collection chock full of vacation shots?
Another challenge arises if you have inherited old family photos from your parents, grandparents or some other loved ones. You want to be a good steward of the family photos. While I discuss the care and keeping of family photo collections in other articles, let’s just stick to the problem of what to do with the old family vacation photos specifically. Are they handled differently than your own modern-day vacation photos? A little bit, but the basics are the same.
Pick the best, toss the rest.
When it comes to the old family trip photos, feel free to be picky. It sounds ruthless, but let’s be honest. No one really needs countless photos of pretty scenery, especially if you don’t know where or when the photos were taken. For that matter, do you need ten photos of Mickey Mouse from 1975? Probably not. But consider selecting a few great shots for each trip, especially if they include people you can identify or are representative of the trip itself. Maybe keep the best photo of Mickey, but toss the other nine.
While you are deciding which photos to keep, be honest about their quality. Are they bad photos? Blurry? Faded? While some prints suffering from the ravages of time can be edited and brought back to life, there is little you can do with the photographer’s finger blocking someone’s face. There should be no guilt in getting rid of poor quality photos, vacation or otherwise, especially if you have better photos of the same subject.
The photos of people are, of course, the most important. Is that picture of Mickey also with a young family member or friend? It makes the photo much more interesting and worthy of being preserved when it shows family or friends.
Capture the stories held in the vacation photos.
Do the photos bring back memories? For you or for older family members? Consider recording the stories that are represented by the photos. If you don’t know the stories, show the photos to your elders and ask them to tell you the stories. Photos always mean more when they are attached to stories.
Subject matters.
Consider also whether the vacation pictures include sites that have changed or are no longer in existence. If so, consider whether the photos might be of some use to researchers or archives somewhere. Does it show a old lodge in Vacationland that is landmark? Or a waterslide that no longer exists in Vacationland? If you think the photos could be of use to a library, museum, or archives, reach out to them and ask. You never know what gems are hidden in a pile of old photos – and those gems may be priceless to others.
How do I manage the modern-day photos on my phone?
Don’t be afraid to be cull your photos now. With the convenience of digital photography, especially with smart phone cameras, we tend to take even more photographs. But do we really need them all? Haven’t we all been there – taking a dozen shots of a sunset on the beach or a lovely mountain scene? Think about selecting the best shot or two and delete the rest. It’s sometimes hard to do, but taking the time to determine which photos are the best and deleting those that don’t make the cut can save a whole lot of headaches later on.
Taking the next step.
Keeping your photos on your phone or a cloud storage of some kind is great (although I recommend backing up your files through another means as well). But you also might want to take another step. It used to be, when we used film, that we would get prints made and place them in a photo album. You can still get prints made (there are preservation reasons to do just that), but you also have more options to create an album. Taking the time to create a photo book gives you the opportunity to not only make a souvenir that you can enjoy many times over, but it also gives you the opportunity to add captions so that the images have more meaning in the years to come. So often, we look at the old vacation pictures from years gone by and we have no idea what the pictures are capturing. Taking the time now allows us to remember the trip and the experiences with more accuracy and detail, and therefore instills more meaning to the images.
Photo books are not just for recent vacation photos, but they are a great way to commemorate old vacation photos too. Granted, if the image is available on just a print, or even in a negative or slide, you will need to digitize the image first. But once you have a high-quality digital file of the image, making a photo book is a natural next step. Consider using those high-quality digital files to make a book that includes that special trip, or maybe make an album that highlights several trips in one book. You can organize the album based on chronology or place or some other theme. It could be really fun to have family photos that represent various places you have visited during a certain time.
Travel log.
Some people have had the foresight to record their reflections during a trip. If you have done this, or if you have inherited a travel log written by someone else, you have hit the jackpot! Consider combining the travel journal with the photographs and make it a truly amazing book.
Preserving the memories.
We all look forward to vacations. Why not take the time to capture the memories and preserve them in a way that you can enjoy for many years? You’ll find that you treasure your vacation photos even more.
