How do you limit the photos? I'm determined to start making annual photo albums for our family. I used to do it, but it wasn't too tough when it was just DH and I, and now I'm starting to tackle the years since we've had kids. My goal is to make an annual year-in-review type album for the whole family, and an annual book for each child. I'm currently working on 2012 which was the year our first was born (well, Dec 2011) and it is SO HARD. I feel like it is going to be a million pages long and super boring to ever look through but am having such a hard time stopping myself from putting every last pic of his adorable face in there! Please share any tips - there is no way I will ever get through 2013 and 2014 at this rate.
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I would keep the best photos. Toss anything that's blurry, has harsh light, distracting backgrounds etc. Pick timeless photos that will age well. Tightly cropped images on the subject are the most attractive IMO.
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Here is what I try to do, I am not always successful! Plus I only have one kid!
I use thislife to organize photos which is linked with shutterfly. I try to go through monthly and tag photos for me projects, I do daddy & baby, mommy & baby, highlights of the month and I take her photo each Friday in her crib.
Mommy/daddy and baby photos get put into one photo book each year in June. The Friday photos get put into a photo book and I print them at her birthday. The monthly highlights get printed and included in a family photo album every few months (I aspire to do it more frequently but it never happens.)
For monthly highlights, I try to make sure there is at least one photo from each big event, so first major league baseball game, swimming lessons get a photo, visits with family etc. I also try to cover things that are a good snapshot of that phase of life, favorite toy, favorite food, trips to the park etc. I aim for around 25-30 photos per month. I think one thing that has helped is changing what I take photos of. Knowing I will use photos of swimming lessons but maybe not twelve of her smiling at me helps!
I also upload photos to the Lifecake app so I have a place to put all of her cute smiling face photos. I love looking through the slideshow on there and I may do a photo book from them.
Geez I have a lot of photo projects... Last one! I also have a private Instagram account and I upload one photo a day of her and get them printed in chat books. That one is super easy and again, I may have it put in a nicer photobook at the end of the year.
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@Cole: Thank you, this is super helpful! 25-30 photos per month seems like a good number. You're right - 50 pictures of DS playing in the basement with the same toys is not all that interesting. I like the idea of trying to focus on big events - that's what albums are for! You can't have too many photo projects, good for you for doing something with the pics. You're probably way ahead of most of the rest of us!
@youboots: I agree that it all starts with eliminating blurry shots, etc. I do need to be better about this. I think closely cropped pics are better too. I keep my photos well organized (although not necessarily well edited/vetted) and this helps a lot.
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Oh and I did not really answer your question. My plan is to do weekly photos on one page 4 total- and then a bigger family photo on the opposite page. I take these photos during milestones (first trip to the beach, first time in a pool etc) so they tell a story in addition to being photos. But this was my plan before she was born to curate the content. I print a bunch of 4x6 prints that I will put in a box made by Make & Stow. We got her a keepsake box for mementos from her birth up to first year.
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I abandoned photo books of solely one person a long time ago and instead focus on yearly albums of 300 photos. Having to print them makes me cull them ruthlessly.
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I make them each Christmas for grandparents but haven't gotten around to ours yet...I do chronological order, focus on the big events but also make sure to have a few pages of daily life-type photos (parks, eating, etc)...and I have twins, so at the end I do a double-page spread that has 9 photos on each page (so 18 total) of just one or the other. I had read somewhere that adult twins often don't find photos of themselves alone as children so wanted to make sure they're not always together. You could do something similar if you have different-aged LO's. I use those collage pages for mostly facial shots. All the other pages I limit to 4-6 photos so I have to get rid of any poor-quality ones; once you enlarge them you can generally tell which ones don't really make the cut.
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I make three small albums each year- 20 pages each, usually fall-winter, winter-spring, summer. What I do is every time I upload pictures to my computer I choose my favorites and put them in a folder. When I go to make the photo book I upload all the ones in that folder and as I'm making it I weed out some more. Generally in the books each month gets a collage of "everyday moments" and then special events (holidays, trips, visits) get their own page. I expect that when the kids are older I will probably be able to move to one album a year, but for now this is more manageable.
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I recently added the app chatbooks to my phone and it automatically puts your Instagram photos into nice quality little books and mails them to you after every 60 photos. It has been my solution to annual photo albums and it only costs $6 per book plus $1-2 shipping. I'm not sure this meets your needs but I thought it might be useful for others having a similar issue.
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@shellio: I work through my yearly photo books by month. I go through and select my favorite photos for each month. I upload them into shutterfly in albums by month. I have so many pics that I end up needing all available pages for the book! I divide the amount of pages by 12 and that's how many pages each month gets.
So then I just add in the photos for each month and work on the layouts. The first page of each month, I add in a text box with the month written in it. After I complete my layouts for the month, I go and delete all the remaining photos. Then repeat for each month.
I have also found that keeping things simple with the design makes things go faster. So I only do white backgrounds on each page and don't worry about embellishments. I occasionally add in captions.
My girlfriend does hers differently then me. She just focuses on main events through out the year. I like to include all the little day to day details tho. I'm hoping to finally finish 2014 in the next week and start catching up with 2015!!
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