Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

Wow. So many pictures!! From 'belly' pictures during pregnancy, to the cute things the babe does daily, the pictures have began to stack up.

And by stack up, I mean literally fill my computer. The first baby related pictures were my 15 week belly pictures.  Notice the green arrow on the right.  To date I've taken almost as many pictures since the pregnancy was showing as I have in the entire time I've had iPhoto -- 2003!!! 


So, every 1 month of pregnancy/baby has had as many pictures as 1 year pre-baby... If you use the day the babe was born over 1/3 of my photos are from that point forward... geesh!


And yes, I have almost 17,000 pictures!  For whatever reason, I can't force myself to delete 'outtakes' or pictures from a set where I've already chosen my favorite.  If you look at the 15 week belly screen the first row, second to last picture has a red dot - that's a red apple with '15 weeks' because that's the estimated size of the babe inside (I did the comparison each month of pregnancy).  Why can't I get rid of the other ones? I think it's because I worry one day I'll look and realize I hate the one I've chosen and won't have any other options.

One day I got a warning my computer was full:

YIKES!!  I took a few hours one day and got rid of duplicates or random pictures I had taken on my phone that weren't relevant (things like price sticker pictures for comparison shopping).  I was able to clear up some space, but it was a losing battle.  My computer ended up breaking and the replacement had much more space - hooray!

I'm sure I'll fill this one up eventually, but I'm working on removing 'bad' pictures - maybe I take 30 pictures of the babe during his weekly picture; instead of keeping them all, I now get rid of the ones that are blurry or with eyes closed.  That helps... a bit.

It seems every day the babe does a dozen things that I want to remember forever.  It's hard, but I force myself to put down the camera and experience the moment.  With technology it's so easy to forget to be present - even if you're participating through a lens/screen.  

I read somewhere that when your baby is born you think they are the cutest thing so you take tons of pictures - the problem is, they keep getting cuter and cuter (yes, it's possible) and doing more you want to capture!!  

On another note, it's important you backup your memories.  I don't know how terrible I would feel if all of my pictures vanished.  So, my favorites get synched to my phone and I backup my whole computer on an external hard drive monthly.  Best Buy has an assortment of 1TB hard drives for under $100. It's probably a good idea to have some offsite storage too - think if your house gets flooded or burned down - your backup goes too! 

How do you keep your photos organized? What type of backup do you use?



No comments:

Post a Comment