show me yours

 photoclutch from Urban Outfitters

 My daughter got a princess photo album for Christmas (among a million other things, one of which was her own camera –surprise surprise). She picked up the empty album this evening and sighed, I don’t have any pictures of me and my friends to put in my album.

Ouch. Those words get a photographer right where it hurts. She’s right. Well, sort of. It’s not that there are no pictures of she and her friends; on the contrary; I have taken more photos of her and her friends than should be legal. But as far as real, tangible photographic prints, there are none. So, for a five-year-old, it feels like there are no pictures. What a strange irony considering I document every day of our lives with my camera and yet...no pictures.

When I shot film I used to get prints made of every roll. We all did. And even when I got a digital slr, I still vowed to treat each full memory card as film and get prints made. That plan lasted for a year and then card after card turned into disc after disc and the images on my computer has grown to an ungodly amount and just like that, prints are now few and far between. I will defend myself and saw that I have bookshelves of photo albums from years past. It’s just since the digital stuff that I have gone astray.

But, alas, it’s a new year! Time to turn over a new leaf. So, I ask, how do you do it? Do you enlarge your favorite photos and display them proudly on your walls? Do you create calendars or keepsakes? Do you scrapbook? Do you print your favorites and get them into photo albums?

And what about the photo albums you do have? Where do you get them? Do you carry a little brag book (I love the one shown above)? Do you print up books from Shutterfly or iphoto?

How do you keep yourself accountable in getting those luscious images you capture printed? We’d love to hear your ideas, get links to your printing resources, or hear your best kept album secrets. Spill the beans; show us what you’ve got.

Comments

[Chris]

I don't like photo albums because, really, who's ever going to see them? I try to keep one wall full of pics, preferably B&W. However, I haven't been changing them out as much as I should. Nearly everything is in my computer. Sigh...what to do?

[Marcie]

Unfortunately - I think it's a general problem of the digital age. I do make calendars every year..but that's 12 images out of thousands:
http://marciescudderphotography.com/index.php?showimage=644

[Carol]

Shutterfly has been amazing, I've just scrapbooked my family history, pages of us growing up, scanned slides which were in better condition than could ever be hoped for, stories, snippets of what was going on in the photographs. The stories of our lives and it's been ever so therapeautic.

[Bet]

I carry a Winnie the Pooh brag book of my favorite prints of my guys and my greats and I have been pretty faithful about ordering prints. *points to the box of prints in every size from wallet to 11x14* I had a problem getting them into frames and onto the wall. It's now a project for 2009. My childhood memories are stored in 5 shoe boxes stuffed with 35mm slides. My Dad took SO many pictures back then. Having them scanned/printed is another goal for 2009. I'm afraid to send them away to a service because they cover 1957 - 1978 and I couldn't bear to lose all of those.

Digital makes it so easy to snap, process and store without a second thought and prints are a big deal to me. After reading this post however it took me back to the days when my sister and I would drag out my Grandmother's photo albums and spend hours just pouring over each page. My own boys used to look at albums and my Greats love to drag out their baby albums at least once a month. I guess it's like curling up with a really great book... you just can't get the same feeling when you're staring at the photo on a widescreen LCD. *hugs her monitor*

[Alli]

At Christmas I made a desk calendar and had them printed at Vistaprint. We also compiled a photobook for my inlaws at Blurb. Both are well received! We also have a digital frame we have pictures on, but we need to be better about loading new pictures.

[Busymomma66]

Some of my photos made it to a calendar for my mom. I just got a printer for Christmas, so maybe now I'll start printing out some of my work. I also recently bought magnarts which I hope to use to quickly change up the photos in my living room.

[margie]

i have tons of photos loaded onto my itouch. i pull it out and give a random slideshow to anyone willing to stand still. this year i made calendars for the kids using iphoto. i was thrilled at how fabulous they turned out for $19.95 each and i noticed the other day that they also do books. this is a fabulous idea for a small two or three year old child. a book with photos of his family, of course the dog, etc. see, i feel a post coming on. it will be my first crafty post!!

[Jodyangel]

Traci I'm in the same boat. Zillions of photo's stored on my quickly filling hard drive. But I do vow to print and display this year. I'm hoping others here will have some great ideas on the easiest way to do this =)

[sandi]

I have been having the very special ones printed off at a local pharmacy. It couldn't be any easier... upload to their site and pay like 25 cents a pic..
I love having photos around in frames.
As far as photo albums/scrapbooking.. ugh..I am sooooo far behind on that you would not believe.

[shelli]

Like you I never print my photos anymore! But I have discovered that through iPhoto and Aperture, I can create very cool books of photos, which I did for Christmas presents this year for family. Sometime I may make one for myself! I have also discovered that I can order prints from Apple right from my computer for much cheaper than going to the store, so when I need prints, that's what I'm gonna do!!

[Suzanne]

Every year for Christmas, I make two books of 100 photos each for my parents and my in-laws. At the beginning of each month, I insert a description of what we did during that time and of the photos that follow.

[jenney]

As everyone has said I think this is definitely an ongoing digital issue. I try to go through my photos every few months and copy them into a "to print" file, send them to Winkflash and get them printed. I'm a scrapbooker so most of my photos end up there. However, I cannot scrap every photo (who has time?) so I need to go through and put those pictures in albums. My 4 year old loves to look through the albums of his baby pictures!

Oh, and I made photo books for Christmas gifts for my parents and my in-laws and they were HUGE hits!!

[Kathleen O./ko2008]

I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately. One of my favorite things to do for a good portion of my childhood was to pore over the photo albums my mom kept on a bookshelf. I was even known to remove and squirrel away some of my favorites! I make yearly photo calendars for my family. I've also begun to make photo books (from Snapfish) for each year of my nephew's life (TWO is done and THREE is almost finished...he turns 4 in January). Including his friends and beloved toys and activities is something I am mindful of...and, thanks in a large part to this site, there are very few "say cheese" pictures, and many more that capture our real everyday lives. I do enlarge or print some special photos now and then...I've also been toying with getting some of those magnetic photo string thingys from Photojojo.

[Marcene]

I did this a few months ago. It hangs in our kitchen and everyone that comes over loves it!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21008348@N03/3159097133/

[Lu]

Funny you post this today, I was just thinking about printing all of my pictures from my CDs. It is the curse of digital photography. We don't print anything anymore. Well, that is changing for me this year, too. I have a Costco membership and I plan on establishing a photography rule. I must upload and order a print of everything the day I shoot it. My kids love looking at their silly pictures and honestly, so do I.

[Sarah]

I make an album each year on kodak gallery (although I'm thinking of using My Publisher starting this year) of trips and events from each year. I love having them on our coffee table to browse, and friends are always looking at them when they're visiting. I made a seperate book (with My Publisher) after walking in the Breast Cancer 3-Day with my sisters this past October - it was more than worthy of being on it's own! I have a wall of framed photos of friends as well, and each year I print out favorites and update it.

[Virginia Wood]

I make prints of my favorites on my own printer--I stock paper in my study and buy the special photo inks so I never have an excuse not to print it right now as I finish editing it. I don't stock frames and mats, however, so there's a bit of a lag before I actually get my pictures up on the wall!

i LOVE the little brag-book clutch. got to have one of those!

[Virginia Wood]

Well, fark. I just went to Urban Outfitters and they don't have that design any more. Bummer. Anybody know where we can get them??

[Bunny]

I, sadly, don't do much with them outside of my computer. I got a digital picture frame for Christmas and now have a slide show of family photos on my desk.

[Caitlin]

I make an annual 12x12 book on blurb.com and make smaller books for special events;)

[marty]

I'm one of those awful people that don't print all the digital files...although what i call awful my husband loves...no more boxes and bags of prints and negatives that I just can't bring myself to throw away :-)
For those who like scrapbooking though I found this site...seems like it could be fun...
http://www.scrapblog.com/

[Puna]

I have many many scrapbooks for I've been scrapbooking for years. I have a weakness for pretty paper and there's something special and textural about holding the prints in your hands. Ever since I received my SLR as a gift and started blogging, I haven't spent as much time on my craft. I have a lot of catching up to do because my kids love that they can sit with a book on the couch and flip through the pages.

However, I did a calendar from Snapfish this year for my mother and she absolutely loves it. I use Snapfish for all my prints, I find they are the cheapest.

Thank you Tracey!

[megan]

i'm actually on top of this one! i send them online to costco, print them out, and stick them in plain, boring albums (that i also get at costco:). nothing fancy, but i do keep on top of it and i always have albums to look at. for vacations, where i take lots of photos, i make a photobook at shutterfly or blurb. one for myself and one for any other family members or friends on the trip. it's a great little memory gift for all!

[Julie Marie]

I love the look and feel of a big print.... but now-a-days... people just like the convenience of a digital frame. So, I put together a year's worth of photos to input... the grandparents are happy !

The other thing I do is stick the photos I want printed on my memory card and when I find one of those quick print kiosques... I print a few to put on the fridge (stick them in magnetic pockets), hand them out to family...

My all time faves are always printed up big... my husband is in charge of the printing here. We have a great Epson printer and the image quality is exceptional.

[trupeach]

i have most of my photos on flickr and use qoop for printing. i had a book made of our honeymoon shots, and i just created a calendar for my parents as a gift. you can get prints made too, which i've done when i've wanted one or two to print and frame.

[Leah G]

I had to smile at this, because I can relate so well. This Christmas I "treated" myself to wedding photos for my walls (only 6 months ago, so not too bad, really). But typically, I print less than 20 pictures a year. I take about 4000 pictures a year. My biggest use of them is to create the family calendar (three years running now). This year I narrowed down the "eligible" photos to 340 and ended up with a calendar using roughly 125 or so. My cousin, who helps with the calendar each year actually printed all of the prints out for herself!! (I printed none for myself.) My hope is that in 2009, I actually print 2 - 3 photos a month, and rotate what I am displaying. I'm not big on photo albums for some reason, but will try to add the better ones to my phone for sharing.

And, for anyone interested, we print 17 calendars each year as gifts for our extended family, so price is a huge concern. We use Costco; their calendar quality is pretty good (and they have updated some of the options available), they will deliver to your home, and the calendars are a mere $9.99 each -- or roughly half of what other stores charge.

Happy New Year everyone.

[deezee]

I've made many iPhoto books, and now use Aperture for its book creating flexibility. I've also made calendars the past two years at my son's request.

[Charlane]

I rarely print any of mine, electing to share instead of websites. Those I do love though go in a rotating gallery in my office but that is 2-3 about every 2 to 3 months. I find I never look at albums.

[jennifer]

your timing is perfect. i was just having this discussion with my husband the other day - and then with a friend last night. i have amassed an ungodly amount of photos and only seem to print them out when i'm going to scrapbook, etc. it seems sad that i just don't have any other snapshots of my children laying around to look at or just to simply have handy when creating. i was just saying that it is a new goal of mine to upload and print some every month. i feel i just have to. i have so many yet none to really "pour" through - other than online. you'll have to post mid-year and see how we're all doing at this new/old routine!

[Tisha]

I print my favs and hang them on my family wall. I also make CDs and I have albums full of them with dates and what all is on the cd. Also I make collages with several pics and print them out to keep that way I have them all on one sheet. I make pic calendars for gifts and other photo gifts. But I think digital helps keep the clutter down. and its all in one place and not scattered all over the house in what ever it will fit in..

[Kelly]

We've started the tradition of creating a book on blurb.com to commemorate a year of photos of our son. We'll do the same for the baby-on-the-way. Each set of Grandparents gets one, and they LOVE it! I was motivated to do this after hearing a talk radio show addressing this very topic! What point is it to have them stored away in the computer? It is also neat to have the hard-cover book on your bookshelf that you had published yourself!

[Debbie Schinker]

First, I have 12,000+ digital pics organized (and automatically backed up, twice!) with Creative Memories' Memory Manager software so I can find the ones I want when I want them - literally within seconds.

http://www.mycmsite.com/sites/debs/catalog-index?event=productdetails&eventId=1282&productGroupId=&categoryId=292&categoryIdParm=|291|292|&pageTitle=Memory+Manager+2.0+Download&relatedItem=N&qtyOrdered=&productId=&itemSku=&act=&selectedCategory=-2147483648

My 9 yo loves to make her own paper albums of her experiences with her own photos (she already has a Christmas 2008 one done!), so I always have several of these on hand:

http://www.mycmsite.com/sites/debs/catalog-index?event=productlocales&eventId=253&productGroupId=11795&categoryId=&categoryIdParm=|196|252|&pageTitle=Paper+Album+Kits&relatedItem=N&qtyOrdered=&productId=&itemSku=&act=&selectedCategory=253

I make small paper-based albums for others as gifts, but mostly I make digital albums now - they're faster, easier, cheaper, skinnier, and hold more pictures than my old paper scrapbook albums! I use Creative Memories' Storybook Creator Plus software to make digital albums, quick 4x6 photo birthday cards, photo thank you cards, photo invites, and even photo gift tags!

http://www.mycmsite.com/sites/debs/catalog-index?event=productdetails&eventId=1284&productGroupId=&categoryId=293&categoryIdParm=|291|293|&pageTitle=StoryBook+Creator+Plus+Download&relatedItem=N&qtyOrdered=&productId=&itemSku=&act=&selectedCategory=-2147483648

(Sorry for the long links, but my tiny URL converter isn't working today.)

[Lindy]

I'm too lazy to actual put them in albums. I print my favorite photos every 3 months or so. My very very favorites I enlarge and put them up on my walls the rest of them go into a photo box. I try to change things up a bit and will change some framed photos every year or so. I also do photo gifts- notebooks, calendars, organizers, magnets for friends and family. I'm very diligent on printing my photos as I had a computer crash and I hadn't backed up/printed any of my photos and lost everything I had prior to 2005. I cried for a solid day and promised myself I would never let that happen again. I love to go through my photo boxes and actual touch my prints.

[Nicole]

What about those digital frames? Are they worth the price?

Marcene - I love you magnetic memo board! I have a "French" style memo board, but the phots fall off and/or curl.

[Stacy]

I actually have a similar clutch, only mine is a silver quilted fabric. It's fun, and since it holds 4x6's, I can just pick shots out of my printed ones that I want to have.

I have so many ways of showing my pictures. The extra special ones get turned into canvas, I have an HP and Kodak photo frames, I scrapbook and print out larger shots that I change out of frames in the house. I don't update them more than once every few months...or so. I like to get my shots printed on Fuji paper for the brighter colors, so I get them printed at Shutterfly, Proex/Ritz and Costco for my scrapbooking prints. Oh, I also have an HP 4x6/5x7 printer, so when I need instant gratification I print off that.

[laurie]

I print the pictures I love a lot. I have an HP printer I adore and print my own at home since the quality is the same as far as I'm concerned. I also digital scrapbook, and the layouts I did of my Bahamas vacation I printed into a book via Shutterfly and I love looking through it. Takes me right back. I also make cards of my favorite pictures and send them to friends. My Christmas cards are always photos now and are always well received. I don't have nearly as much wall space as I'd like, but I'm eyeballing what I do have to make a place for a big magnetic frame like Marcene showed. *That* is fabulous. I do have my favorite pics printed large and framed.

I keep my photos backed up on CD and an EHD. The possibility of a crash got us to that point. It never did crash (thank goodness) but it got me thinking and now I'm set.

[Shawna]

We've done books with iPhoto the last couple of Christmases for the grandparents and great-grandparents. I think I'll try another service next year though - the quality is great but I'd like more control over the layout (iPhoto lacks the ability to put in 5 photos on a page, dust in mini ambiance-type shots amongst the bigger family photos, include a panoramic shot, etc.).

[Christine]

This is something I have struggled with for some time. Images just look SO much better in print. They lose something when they are viewed on just a screen - although it is one of the easiest ways to share. One of my goals for 2009 is to print a book with a body of work of images. I also want to print some of my work and hang it in our home.

[nickythomas]

hello shuttersisters,

i print out photos of other peoples kids but rarely of my own. I entered a portrait comp a while ago that required me to print out an A2 size photo of my daughter. I dont have anywhere to put it so today i gave it away to a friend who has alwas liked it.
my dad died last year and before christmas i scanned all the photos of my dad that i found at their house and printed them into a book via Blurb. Mum loves it. Its the best gift i have ever given her and i know that she looks at it a lot, much more than she would have looked at a box of old photos.

have a lovely day

nicky x

[Megan]

I bought that exact photo clutch as a gift! Just thought that was a fun happenstance. Most of my photos are all on my computer, I have photo albums from college and younger but I really should create a new one. :)

[OTRgirl]

This year, I used blurb.com to create photobooks. Seemed like a great solution with less effort than printing and creating a scrapbook. I have a friend who created her own wedding album using them. I loved the quality. The interface and software was ok, but I'm a professional designer and got a little frustrated with not making my own layouts (but I did a workaround and laid things out in Photoshop and uploaded them as a jpg image.)

[Heather]

it seems like we are all in the same position - take loads of photos but struggle with getting them printed and then the final step...sticking them in an album - I think that the photo books are just not the same as the "old fashioned" prints and then stuck into a big old album...do others agree? does anyone know of a company who will provide the printing and sticking in service the traditional way...seems to me that they would make ALOT of money!

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