Going Digital

When I was getting ready for my Radical Moving Sale in October,  I pulled out my old organizing portfolio of Before & After pictures that I started  15 years ago to show prospective clients.  My website & Facebook page have replaced that relic so I removed all of the prints & sold the album.  

I also had a matching album for storing all of the photo CDs I got when I developed a roll of film back in the late 90s and early 2000s.  As I went through the CDs, I realized that I had saved most of the pictures to my computer over the years.  So, I decided to get rid of the discs too and spent a couple hours this weekend checking each disc and to make sure that I had all of the images saved to my computer - it only took a couple hours because my digital photos are well organized in labeled folders on my computer.  I really do walk the walk when it comes to organizing.

The question I'm facing now is whether or not to keep all of the actual prints of my photographs.  Several years I ago I started scanning all of our family photos to my computer & now keep the prints stored in 5 acid-free photo boxes.  I also now use a service called Mozy.com to back up all the data & photos on my computer and store them online so if my computer is ever stolen or destroyed I can easily download all of my info to a new computer.  This whole process of simplifying my life has me questioning now if I really need the prints anymore. 

My Great-Grandfather, Manly Baker Sr.

Letting go of so much of my stuff has been pretty easy, but I've always loved photography. I was a yearbook photographer in high school & often dreamed of traveling the world taking pictures for National Geographic or Architectural Digest.  I've even been able to incorporate photography into my organizing business with Before & After photos.  So, the idea of getting rid of my prints even though they're all safe & sound in digital format makes me a little anxious. 

I'm definitely keeping the pictures of my family from the late 1800s and early 1900s that were mounted on decorative cardboard and have such a lovely patina now.  I'm also keeping the cardboard Polaroids from the 1970s and  those prints with rounded corners that you can only reproduce on Instagram or other photo editing programs these days.  I don't feel as much attachment to all of the glossy & matte prints from the late 1990s and early 2000s though.  Maybe because I took so many pictures at that time and I'm so used to having them stored on my computer that those prints don't seem as special.  Not that the images aren't special, I just don't get the same sense of history looking at them.  Perhaps these prints will seem nostalgic and sentimental to my grandchildren some day.

All things considered, my plan right now is to work on reducing the number of my prints to ONE box and leave all of the older family prints in 3 clear shoe boxes with my Mom.  That feels like the right balance of radical and simplicity for me today.  Now I just have to deal with all of my old negatives.  Oy vey!