In the past we’ve enthused about freeing your photos from your camera roll. Check out Miranda’s post on instagram prints if you missed it. I’m hoping if we haven’t inspired you to get printing and archiving then this post will.

One evening a few weeks ago I was round at my sister’s and there happened to be a few photos hanging around from her husband’s childhood. I say ‘hanging around,’ by this I mean neatly piled and compartmentalised. My sister doesn’t share my untidiness trait.
One of them was a terrific photo of my brother-in-law and his siblings piled on the sofa one Christmas, paper hats askew. From the texture of the paper, the brownish hue of the print and the velour decor it was safe to assume to this was a snap taken in the late eighties. Flipping to the back identified the subjects, location and year, handwritten on the back preserved for us to take a gander at nearly thirty years later.

I probably print about one percent of my photos and I couldn’t tell you the last time I took the time to document anything on their backs. I have an insatiable desire to hoard, keeping trinkets and memorabilia from every trip and occasion. Holding on to memories is really important to me. It was a sobering thought to realise I had managed to overlook the most basic way to record my experiences.

Over the years the memorable faces you once knew become less recognisable. Occasions blur into one and it’s easy to forget the friends of friends you once socialised with. While modern technology might tell me my image was taken on 12th December and perhaps a bit of geographical info it’s not going to tell me, or more importantly, the future generations, who was in the photo. Yep, Facebook tagging is helpful for this but will everyone have disabled their account in ten years time?

In the last few years there have been big birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, funerals and celebrations all calling for displays of treasured photos. The tactile experience of searching through family albums and boxes of photos has triggered far more memories than a digital experience ever could. I’ve been grateful to my mum and gran for all remembering to add the places, the people and the date. It’s been a much less frustrating trip down memory lane!

I’ve just received my latest bunch of Origrami instagram prints. The quality is superb and I love the feature they offer of printing the back with a jazzy pattern and the date the image was uploaded to instagram. Good effort but I’ll be sure to use the handy polaroid style strip to remind me the pic shown in our slider was taken on our 2012 annual ‘Mrs Moet’ get-together at the Mailbox in Birmingham.

I’m really going to take the time from now on to not only print my photos but also to create albums where I can document all the particulars. Anyone else going to join me? When I’m gone I don’t want everyone crowding around a computer screen looking at images from days gone by. I want the wine flowing and the albums being passed around. It’s far more social!
How do you archive your photos? Anyone else wonder how we’ll view photos in the future?