It happens every time there is a major natural disaster. There's another news story about how one of the victims found their photos. Their house may be gone. All those earthly possessions that they paid money for are gone.
But they FOUND THE PHOTO ALBUM! You can see the smiles and happiness - despite all the destruction that surrounds them. Family photos are clearly the most precious and irreplaceable things we own.
There was a day when only 12 or 24 photos came in a roll. People carefully put them on the black pages of a photo album and with white ink, labelled them: "Aunt Betty and Cousin Jane - June 1945". We open those albums and we know about the lives of grand parents and great-grandparents.
But today our photos are fast losing their value and their meaning because we have become a nation of photo-hoarders. Here's what I mean:
Did you take more than 10 photos of your last family event with your digital camera?
Do you have boxes and boxes of duplicate photos you got in the 80's and 90's?
Are your photos being robbed of their color by the old magnetic film albums that were so handy a few decades ago?
Here's where the concept of hoarding comes in. I happened to catch one of those reality-TV shows where an organization expert was coaching a lady who had hundreds of gifts that she had stuffed into a room but had never given to family members or friends. "I can't throw any of them away" she said. "They are too important!"
The expert said something really profound: "My dear, if everything is important ...then nothing is important."
Photo hoarding is really not anyone's fault. It's just that the technology of photo-taking has changed so much in 30 years that we've all become photo-hoarders without realizing it. Sure, you've got those photos stored in boxes or on your computer or on Facebook. But 50 years from now will another generation know who is in those photos or what these photos mean to you? Will your great-grandchildren share the meaning of your life-- or will your hundreds of photos just be dumped into another container and lost forever?
I believe that 10 photos that are printed and written about are worth thousands in a box or a hard drive.
We have too many photos and not enough time. This blog is devoted to finding the strategies and tools to restore meaning and the value to your pictures.
