What's The Problem?

Here’s the process of getting our pictures before the digital age: 1) Purchase a roll of film and load it into the camera. 2) Take 24 pictures (or 36 for vacation) with care because you did not want to run out of film plus the more film you use the more it costs. 3) Take the film to your local grocery store or the local Fox photo booth (drive-thru) for developing. 4) Pick your printed pictures up when ready (you could get one-hour processing for a higher cost) and of course order doubles or triples to give to family or friends.

What’s the process now? 1) Pull your phone out of your pocket or purse — ready and accessible all the time. 2) Take as many as you want to get a good one (you can always go back and delete the extras). 3) Download photos off the device to your computer. 4) Once on the computer, organize them in folders. 5) Go through and delete the bad ones. 6) Share them (if you haven’t already) on social media or e-mail. 7) Figure out what to print and for what (to give to family, for back-up, digital photo book, etc.). 8) Send them off to get printed. 7) Back up.

I covered it loosely because it’s not as black-and-white as it used to be – but I think you get the picture!! There are many more steps to organizing your photos today than in the past.  SO….the generation that only had to “develop and print” now has boxes and boxes of printed photos that probably need to be organized!  On the digital side, most of us do not get the photos off the device because we may not know how or never have the time, and the sense of urgency is not there since we have already seen the photo.

It turns into one of those things that then gets put in the “I’ll get to it later” category.  Life goes on and we continue taking pictures and then we are behind and before you know it, the task is overwhelming.

There is a stat that comes to my mind that I heard just a few months ago while attending a personal photo organizer conference (yes, there is such a thing).  The “develop and print” era spent one hour a month on their photos. The equivalent to that now is nine hours a month.  Wow!