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Post by angela on Mar 2, 2017 19:58:34 GMT -5
Photos and memorabilia are the next category of things to sort through in my downsizing quest. As well as the next category physically in the downstairs doom/storage room, as I have been working my way around the room in a linear fashion, one bin to the next, left to right. Despite the volume of things in there, it was all organized in categories and neatly stored in bins, long ago when I first started using that room for storage.
So I set myself the task of consolidating ALL digital photos into the iPhoto app on my own newer laptop. With a few goals: to be able to see all photos in one place, to be able to cull duplicates and unwanted photos, to be able to backup the photos relatively easily and in an orderly manner to whatever backup device/service I decided upon.
This turned out to be a bigger project than I anticipated and is far from done.
What needed to happen and what I have completed was to gather all DIGITAL photos from hither and yon and import into iPhoto.
First, I had to find the older iPhoto libraries for both S and I from the old MacBook we shared. I found those libraries in the old backups on the older Time Capsule (an external drive that can be set to backup the contents of one’s computer)
I had to move those libraries, whole, onto my newer laptop’s desktop. Open those libraries, export the photos I wanted to keep into a file on my desktop, then open my NEW library and import those photos. Whew.
All along, I had to move things onto and off of my current computer and the older external drive that I have chosen to use as a physical backup device. All these photo libraries are several gigabytes large and I kept running out my computer memory.
As I was working through that, I realized that none of our devices had been synced in a couple of years. So I needed to sync my iPhone and iPad to my own library. Hundreds of photos and videos moved. Synced S’s iPhone and iPad to his library. Fewer photos to move but still a lot. Then choose which of his photos to export into a file, then import those into my library.
I have a still older iPhone sitting in a drawer. The bunny chewed the charging cord, which I plan to replace anyhow, but I am fairly certain I migrated those photos at some long ago date. Right now, I’m going to trust that I did.
After all that, I looked around in the backup of the old computer and found folders of photos that I had loaded from my Mom’s digital camera. Gah!
And had folders of photos I had downloaded from my brother’s Facebook page.
And a folder of livestock photos from ’09. Why did I have those in a separate folder? I don’t remember.
So, I moved those folders to my computer desktop and went through them, importing photos into my now burgeoning iPhoto library.
Lastly, remembered that I had e-mailed myself photos from my Mom’s phone. So I sorted through e-mails, importing those attached photos.
I think I can say, with relative certainty, that I have indeed consolidated ALL digital-only photos from the various devices, backups, and miscellaneous folders.
Don’t laugh…there are 4,728 photos and 869 videos in my iPhoto library!
I know there are duplicates in there, and likely a whole lots of photos and videos I won’t necessarily want to keep. Because I have already made some of those sorts of decisions as I imported from S’s devices, and the miscellaneous photos from Mom and brother, I am left to make decisions about the photos that came from my camera and iPad.
I have made some decisions as to the organizing of all of this. I won’t add titles or go through and identify faces. I’ll do a little editing of creation dates for photos that are out of order.
I am inclined to delete ANY photo that gives me even a tinge of regret or guilt.
I have decided to use Flickr as my off-site, in-the-cloud backup service. I have had my Mom and my brother “follow” me and I can set privacy settings so they will be able to see all of the joint family photos I upload to the site.
After I do that uploading, I am somewhat inclined to delete many of the photos of my brother’s kids from my own photo library.
I have a niggling fear that there are some digital photos “trapped” on my very old Performa computer. Taken with a couple of first-generation digital cameras. I will fire up that old computer and see what I see, and hope that I took the time to send them for printing to one of the mail-order print services that I was using at the time. I still have a couple of the oldest photo “cards” and an old card reader (remember those?) that will go into a port on my old laptop and can be read.
As is my habit, I am thinking about “why” and the meaning of my life as I go through all these photos. This particular set of digital photos spans most of the last 11 years. I think there was still some overlap with my use of my film camera, but that is another story.
When I imported the photos from S’s old libraries and devices, I chose to not import photos of his own adventures, his road trips, trips at sea…they aren’t deleted, they still live on those devices and library backups and I don’t much care that they do since they are just using unneeded digital storage.
I chose to import photos that were taken while he was home.
I look through my own photos, the photos I took, and SO many of them are of my brother’s kids. I was there, I was an observer, and sort of a participant, but I do think, well, this wasn’t MY life…so thinking that after they are uploaded to Flickr and the family has access to them, I’ll just delete them from my computer except for a few favorites.
I decided to keep every photo of S himself. And every photo of my Grandma.
And most every photo of myself, found on S’s devices and backups, and some on Mom’s. Not vanity, just a little of my own history through their eyes.
I’ll make myself a desktop folder of my very favorites, the ones that make me smile. Maybe after some more time has passed, I’ll feel free to release the other photos, that are just lukewarm feelings.
_________________
Although I feel accomplished getting this all organized, I have to admit that this has been a detour from the main goal of reducing VOLUME! I have not opened a bin of memorabilia to go through!
If I chose to continue working backwards (time wise) then the next logical group of photos will be the ones that were taken with my film camera and were developed by the mail order services like Seattle Filmworks, Shutterfly, etc. that provided both print photos and a photo CD.
I can toss negatives (yes I will!), unwanted prints (most!), and move some of the digitized photos to the iPhoto library then toss the CD. I expect that most of this group will need to have creation dates modified if I want the digital versions to land in date order in the iPhoto library. And though I don’t know yet about the Shutterfly CD’s, I do know that the Seattle Filmworks CD files require conversion from their file format into JPEG. I have downloaded that software and did one experimental conversion. Works fine but will be labor intensive.
Very fortunately I suppose, there are far fewer individual photos in the film prints! Limited by 24 and 36 size rolls of film and paying for developing…I just wasn’t as snap-happy then and I have been with my phone!
Going deeper still, I would be into the print-only photos of my own. And the physical memorabilia. Then it’s deciding what prints to keep, what to scan and digitize…
Then it’s into the Grandparent’s stuff…
These bins contain thousands and thousands of individual objects. I can honestly say, in none of the other categories I have sorted, has there been this many objects.
I am not sure I’m up for it.
But it is a fair amount of volume, and is taking up a corner of the room. A corner that I would rather be using to store the leather stock and tools that I have chosen to keep so I can get it out of the living room.
My current idea, though it makes me a bit crazy to think of, is to do a bin shuffle and take my bins of yarn back downstairs to live with the other bins of craft materials, and move all the bins of memorabilia and photos upstairs, to work through a bit at a time in the evenings when I am sitting in front of the TV. I have been using that time anyway to do all this digital photo sorting.
I knew this category would be a bugger.
This is where I’m at though. I have been through most other categories at least once, many twice. Craft materials have not had their day, though craft books have. Even so, I did some tossing (donating) of a full garbage bag of craft supplies just last month.
What is keeping me going is that I can really see the light at the end of this very long dark tunnel. An end point where I have edited my possessions down to the things that support my daily activities quietly and without fuss, help me have a balanced experience and remembrance of my past and the people that have meant something to me, and going forward, allow me to express those subtle creative impulses easily, with tools and materials and space at hand.
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Post by mouseanne on Mar 2, 2017 20:07:30 GMT -5
Geez Louise.
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Post by catcat on Mar 2, 2017 23:35:41 GMT -5
Angela---This is incredible. I can't imagine doing all that & I wouldn't know how to do much of the computer stuff you describe. GOOD ON YOU !!!!! Sometimes I think we just get an idea that we want to do a big project & we run with it. You REALLY ran with it. You have my awed admiration ! You have accomplished so many other things too. Wow ! catcat    |
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Post by phoenixcat on Mar 3, 2017 0:14:05 GMT -5
WOW  I think often about a similar task and know how much work is involved. What a great job!! PC |
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H2H
Banned
halfwaytohoarder gets rid of it all!
Joined: February 2017
Posts: 2,041
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Post by H2H on Mar 3, 2017 0:54:21 GMT -5
Angela.. congrats on a MJOR MAJOR workload completed!!
about a decade or two before the digital camera I sat myself down one NYD, with a pot of coffee and 8 new photo albums, ( the fancy MODERN 80's ones with a sticky page and clear film that laid over, no paper points to glue)
.and placed EVERY picture from all the shoeboxes --years of me and hubbys life and his family, holidays, travels, each into organized albums by year or event . On vacations - frankly, one gorgeous gold and rust fall tree in color, or stunning mountain range looks the same in Montana as the wilds of Oregon so you forget which vacation! but I appreciate them all..
I am so glad I did this then, later passed on the ones I took of nephews as babies to them as adults with their kids....his sister's wedding, etc.
His family had a box of old 8 mm FILM reels - I had them converted and put all on ONE video, a copy for each family member one Christmas, (the video service has music playing in the background as these are silent home films of course
Most were 1940's- 50s ladies walking arm and arm super fast in their neat suits, hats, gloves, and flowers on the lapel after the war, and big yellow taxis driving by, so darn charming you want to jump into that life, --babies in heavy cotton diapers, lopsided Christmas trees.. lady relatives in "cat eye" glasses on chains, kids grinning, little yellow dogs running around excited!)
ANGELA- I think your 50's housewife avatar reminded me of those home movies, haven't thot of them in years)
I have no where near as many as you Physical OR digital combined ..but still a few thousand at least stored in Dropbox.com online for free.. half are from my alt building business. so many cool ways to build for free, I will never toss them!
As far as ANCIENT photo storage.. I have little 4" floppies from the 90s, hundreds of them in bright Crayola colors and no way to play, all equipment long gone, same with storage devices, and afraid to toss.. anyone have a CRAFT using these floppies, besides a coffee coaster??
the GOOD THING ABOUT THE B&W PICS developed in the 40s-50s is they came back in little spiral bound albums .so all the same film roll were together, AND they had a date on the back too.
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Post by hollyhock on Mar 3, 2017 5:50:54 GMT -5
angela -  on all of that picture transferring and storage. That sounds like a HUGE job! It must feel so good to have it done! I just started on my own project of dealing (mainly sorting into people or categories) of my paper memorabilia. I think I only have 5 totes - did 1 yesterday. It was very hard to do, mentally and emotionally. I know I wasn't ready before now to deal with all of the emotions it brought up. I wish you much success with your own. But I think this is one category where if it becomes too much, then putting it away for another year or two helps. Your idea of bringing it upstairs, if you have the room, to deal with it in comfort, is good. I'm bringing mine into my LR and doing it in front of the TV as well. I just work through a handful at a time, or 15 minute spurts. Wishing you much success with this. I know you are truly an inspiration to many here!
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Post by Unswamping on Mar 5, 2017 15:37:58 GMT -5
angela   i know this is a huge project. Im really glad that you gave some thought into the process before you rushed headlong into it. It sounds like a really great plan. Im not shocked by the volume you have, i know i have at least that many photos, less on the videos since i really only started taking videos when i got the ipad. Thinking back, i think ive had a digital camera since 1998. Very true that snapping hundreds of photos digitally is so easy. I have one of those old card readers too and some old photo cards. Actually, i bought the reader fairly recently. Surprisingly my printer also reads those cards, but it will only print the photos, not move them to storage.
H2H i still have some of those 4" disks too. I actually have a digital camera that uses them. My laptop does not have a floppy drive so i bought an external one that plugs in via usb. Im transferring the files to my laptop. Then i erase the floppy and toss. They are recycleable, at least not here. Have you even seen the jellio website? The guy who started the company, started by taking his old toys and encaising them in lucite. He would up building a business with that. Maybe you can come up with a similiar type use? Retro stuff is vogue right now. Maybe a "pixelated" image made of the floppies on a table top, maybe a "pacman". Covered with that heavy duty clear resin that you get at michaels or ac moore, for durability.
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H2H
Banned
halfwaytohoarder gets rid of it all!
Joined: February 2017
Posts: 2,041
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Post by H2H on Mar 5, 2017 16:43:25 GMT -5
unswamping- Maybe you can come up with a similiar type use?
OMG!!! HAHAAHh do not feed the alligator!! I HAVE used the endlessly mailed AOL CDs tied on long ribbons as bird deflectors...
and when I had my house building business I sent wall PLASTER samples that were dried on the AOL CDs, Sending a book, article and a thin thin lightweight sample was perfect to teach others!!
people just cracked up at this revengeful use of annoying CDs send in the billions in the late 90s-2005. We all had them, at the post office I picked up handfuls from the dump bin (in their cardboard sleeve, which made a HANDY protective cover.....so in my hoarding-recycler-use way I developed a functional practical application.
Until I do decide on how to process the floppies they will sit, I may be able to access the photos if I follow up on what you said..there may be a device or just a service to download them ( and I have given away every iteration of "storage device" there is)
The home recycler builder DAN PHILLIPS I love.... who taught me a lot...used not just license plates as roof shingles, he also used big VINYL RECORDS, overlapped as strong durable roofing..
I can use the hard floppies glued onto wood as a cover on bird feeders.. I STOP myself at creating another THING to visually clutter my home.. I am already the neighborhood ECCENTRIC with my blue bottle tree, rusty machine parts YARD ART..on and on. Cast Iron SPROCKETS, GEARS, 40 LB street water covers, <<<< I own all of it
Online catalogs SELL for $90+ these same large gears glued to a block of wood..I have 3 of these I got free, plus 30 other cool things like this as "art" I am SWIMMING in cool stuff! I reid to give away 20 shovel heads, tines from rakes, no one wants it it has to go to the metal recycle bin..eventually.
Dan Phillips: Creative houses from reclaimed stuff
Whimsical Recycled Houses Built By Dan Phillips – Home Makers – S1E1
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Post by creativechaos on Mar 5, 2017 16:59:50 GMT -5
oh god, angela. this all makes me dizzy to read! - all you've done and have to do. it gets complicated when you are dealing with other people's stuff and memorabilia - especially when there is loss and grief involved, and all the letting go you've been doing and are still in process of doing. i admire your ability to get things down to the fine details such as you have. i can see why this category is saved for last in the konmari method. i love your idea to swap out the yarn and sort the memorabilia at night, bit by bit. makes good sense. and you can watch your shows while doing it. re digital photos -  - i probably have at least 30,000 digital photos, many collected from the web - of beautiful quilts and mosaics and paintings, of nature, and of things that are beautiful or anything inspiring to me. i even look at them. i LIKE them. but - it does keep me distracted into not doing my own art, so that is something more to consider; the self sabotage of that. or maybe the reality that i like looking more than doing, and the intrinsic possibility of failure with my own attempts! personal memorabilia - not so much. two or 3 boxes, max. that was all taken away when i moved 3,000 miles away from my home town. there was trauma - all that i had loved and carefully saved for my return (never happened; long story) was taken from me. along with it, all of my history, gone. i ended up with the clothes on my back and a new homeland - unplanned. i think that probably was when my hoarding problem, though lifelong, really got triggered - the fear of everything being ripped out from under me again. my mother was not sentimental, nor any of my siblings. i do have some memorabilia from 36 yrs of living on an island. but again, total, with all letters and photos and funeral flyers - i think this fits into about 3 boxes. i would like to halve that. my problem is more the denial of the lives i want to lead - too many of them - and too little life to do them, and how to choose. i'm sure whatever you decide, will be right for you and you will know best as you go along what that is. WTG on all your releasing you have done- keeping only what has meaning and validity to your life today. i like that you won't keep anything that brings bad feelings and guilt. who needs 'em?! |
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Post by hurricane on Mar 5, 2017 17:06:50 GMT -5
Angela, what do you think about just letting these photos go...not organizing them or going thorough them at all? To me this is kind of like unearthing boxes you haven't seen in years; if you haven't needed what's in those boxes for years, they're probably not essential to your existence. One has to not only work hard, but work smart. I'm just wondering how digging through past photos, which will take hours upon hours of your lifeblood that you can't get back, will enhance your current situation? Do you have a life story that excites you when you think of reliving it? If not, I tend to think it's wiser to spend your time and energy working toward a good future and building the life you want to have. I hope my words have not offended you. Heaven knows I have my own baggage and ruts which I battle on the daily, and I don't pretend to have the answers for anyone else. My words are only for you to consider...if they do not suit you, please feel free to throw them in the garbage and carry on in your own way.  |
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Post by angela on Mar 5, 2017 22:24:25 GMT -5
Hi again and thanks everyone for the support and acknowledgement. A very nice side project that was made possible by all the digital photo consolidating: I assembled a slide show in iPhoto for my Grandmother's 93rd birthday party. 15 minutes long, using photos I had found. It was quite rewarding to create and I think she enjoyed watching it. A video birthday card of sorts.  A bit of a progress update. I found that I do indeed have the old, original charging cable for my iPhone 3 so I charged it up to take a look at the photos on it. They are all backed up as I had suspected anyhow. I started into the first bin of photos, pulling out packets and quickly sorting into piles: keep, trash, hand off to family. I got through I think 5 packets if I remember right. hurricane, thanks for your suggestion. Here's where I'm going with the printed photos and paper memorabilia. I pretty much know what's in the bins. Over the years, I've culled through them, every 3-4 years or so. Each time, releasing more. The last couple of years especially, I have had so many changes in my thoughts regarding my past experiences, and what I want to carry forward from here. All the factors of S's death, my turning 50, family changes, etc. have forced me to process and then put to rest pretty much every aspect of how I used to think about my life and the people in it. Then add in helping my friend move and sitting with her while she decided to throw away every piece of memorabilia type things from her past life, talking through that and how to make that decision. My thread from last summer regarding what to do with things from the past and the feedback from other members. I spend a LOT of time in contemplation about any given category. My mind seems to need to find words, explanations, categories, etc. before I take action. I do best at releasing objects when I come to a point in my mind where I am quite reductionist and the thoughts fit into a mental box. Or maybe a unifying theme underlying it all? I tried on various thoughts/themes/containers about the utility of these possessions. From historical accuracy for "posterity", to keeping reminders of past failures so I don't forget whatever lesson, to fodder for 12 step work, etc. All tried on and now discarded. I have also had to work through some of times in my life that were the most traumatizing, that were tangled up with sweeter memories. I can say that time passing and appropriate medication has dulled the remembrance of the pains, and helped make room for recognition of those sweet times. So as my thoughts have sorted out, the theme I can live with, and base my releasing decisions upon, is to keep those few objects that remind me of the things I am most proud of accomplishing. Of the events that meant the most to me. And the people in my life that I have loved, that have loved me, AND have treated me well. This is a narrative I can feel good about going forward and one that I wouldn't mind sharing with anybody who might eventually be interested. All this to say, once my thoughts have come to a framework, I can sort fast. In my mind, decisions are already made. I say fast, as fast as my time and energy allow. I will sometimes get bogged down. If I encounter some piece of something that creates confusion or resistance. In my mind, I can name several things that I am planning to keep. They are in the bins, in their place amongst other things that will be leaving. And there is a lot that will be leaving, finally. The things I want to keep, I think I would miss if they left. I don't often miss much that I've released or lost, but there are some things I lost long ago that I would have liked to have now. It's not a tragedy that they were lost, I have the memory. But still... So it's worth it to me to take a bit of time with all this. After some more of the photo sorting, I'll evaluate where I am at on time and decide how much if any I can dedicate to scanning. The whole digital photo consolidation took more time that I anticipated, but even so, it was maybe 5 hours once I decided on a course of action. Now I can continue to sort through the photos looking for duplicates and culls, when I'm just sitting for a bit with the computer. No urgency now that they are all in one place and at being backed up automatically to my newer Time Capsule. |
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Post by peaceandfreedom on Mar 6, 2017 12:05:52 GMT -5
angela, your project interests me. You talk about iPhoto, which I understand from others is a wonderful program for the Mac computers. I hope it is ok here on your blog to ask anyone who might read this, what is a good program to use with a Windows computer. I have used Picasa quite a bit, but they have discontinued supporting it now, so it is kind of "use it at your own risk." I do not want a complicated (and expensive) !program like Photoshop. If you don't want this distraction on your blog, just let me know and I will delete this posting. I, too, need/want to work o n my photos. Thank you!
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Post by mylittlescholar on Mar 6, 2017 15:57:58 GMT -5
WTG Angela! Have you heard the comedian Jim Gaffigan's riff about how we can't get rid of our computers because of the photos on them? "Oh, that's our wedding computer..."
I just wanted to mention that the last time I wanted to use Flickr I was surprised that I needed to upgrade to have the functionality I wanted--I can't remember now if it was a storage issue or something else, but you might want to check before uploading there, if you haven't already.
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Post by angela on Mar 9, 2017 22:38:34 GMT -5
Hi peaceandfreedom, I wish I could help with a photo app for Windows. Hope someone else chimes in for you. Maybe start a thread in by-ways? mylittlescholar, that's funny about the computer.. I successfully loaded a set of photos to Flickr when I started this process, just as an experiment and it worked fine. Thank you for the heads-up. _________________________ Had forgotten to upload (download?) from the Canon camera into my iPhoto library. Gah! So I did that last night. I have gone through the photos up to November 2013. I have gotten all into correct date order. All the photos from the iPhones and old iPhoto libraries were in proper date order but photos from my Mom's camera and from FB were not. As I went I also moved truly special photos into a folder on my computer desktop. I deleted duplicates and photos I just didn't want. Total of 1,400 or so photos and videos deleted out of the 5,000 I started with. Got a little sidetracked last night with face identification. I said I wasn't going to do that but did about a hundred anyway. There is something about this process overall that the OCD part of my brain likes. Repetitious organizing is a bit soothing and I get hooked into continuing with it for longer than I should. Also, made the decision to not watch all the little videos right now. All will go faster as I come up to more recent photos. I'm past all the stuff from the old libraries and old folders that I needed to import. Once done with getting things as I want with the iPhoto library, I'll start the Flickr upload process. I'll be glad to have this project behind me. I really didn't plan for this much time but once I started it all, it needed to be finished, or I would be back to the beginning of the learning curve. Have made a decision to NOT take the time to load pictures from the old photo CD's, and will not take the time to scan things right now. I will do the sorting, at a pace I can manage, and aim to reduce as much volume as I can stand right now. Any volume reduction is good. May still bring the bins upstairs so I can scan and such when I have the time and inclination. I can't say this has been an enjoyable process except in the learning how to do the technical parts of this. I enjoy learning tech. But looking through the photos, not a lot gives me joy. A ton of photos of family events, which so often are challenging for me. And a ton of photos of the livestock, which has been another challenge. It will be interesting to see if I just choose to jettison most all of these at some future time. |
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Post by imamess on Mar 10, 2017 4:22:54 GMT -5
I admire your work on this project. At the beginning of the year I sorted about half of my printed photos into rough family groups and the volume was amazing. I intended to sort further and scan them and that has not happened yet. Kudos to you  |
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