I have this wall in my house, full of photos from the 1890’s- 1900’s. It took me hours to figure out who everyone in the photos were and frame them. Now I have an amazing wall in my house that EVERYONE comments on. I then took all the family names from our tree and put them on the wall. My son knows those are my grandparents (and great grandparents and great great great…)
Imagine if those were stuck on a phone that found its way to a landfill. They would have never seen the light of day. I would have no idea who my great grandmother was when she was 18.
I keep seeing the quote “the most photographed generation in history will have no physical prints to show for it” and “Every day, people take more photos with the iPhone than with any other camera”. The sad truth is, how many of us actually PRINT their iPhone photos? Being a photographer, I personally find it SO hard to organize my personal digital content. Strange huh? I take photos for a living, but I’m COMPLETELY overwhelmed with my own personal iPhone photos. Do I edit them to the best of the best?? Put them in folders on my computer desktop?? When I want to show them, do I log on to a computer? Find them on Evernote? Leave them on my phone, post them to Facebook? Here is a novel Idea… how about I print them! Then I can put them in an album, on a shelf. That I can reach for and pull down and show people the photos in 20 years.
So, how do you save your photos off your phone without taking hours of your time. If you have an iPhone and an Apple Computer – there is a simple solution (other than horrid iPhoto which I personally really dislike) many don’t know about. It’s called “Image Capture“. Plug your phone into your computer via USB, open “Image capture”
Once opened you will see your phone over to top left of the screen (see photo below) and an IMPORT ALL button on the bottom right. Over to the bottom left is a folder button. You pick the folder you want to dump them into. I have ONE folder called iPhone Photos and in there are sub folders based on downloads dates, so I have some idea of what I’ve downloaded and uploaded. Here is the link to Apple on how to import with Image Capture
Once all the photos are downloaded, I go to www.winkflash.com and upload my photos.
Uploading them, gets them off my computer in case my house ever burns down, and then it gives me a reason to print them. I don’t want them sitting on Winkflash never to see the light of day again. So I print them. ALL of them. Every single photo. Wait.. what? Yes, I print EVERY photo. Right now I have 1800 photos to print. The thing I love about Winkflash is that I can print them for $0.06. I also get free shipping. I normally just wait for the sales before I print them. I also use winkflash to do a quick cull of the “junk” photos I took to remember a price on an item, or the photo I took of mail to send to my husband.
Now if you are a PC user (gasp) there are simple ways to get your iPhone/cellphone photos off your phone here
If I did take these on film, I would print them. Just because they are in my phone doesn’t mean I shouldn’t print them. In ten years, who knows what technology will be like, and you may not be able to EVER retrieve these photos. You know how often you upgrade your phone. Did you save all your photos OFF your last phone? The other piece I want to share is backing up the photos. I currently have a app on my phone that’s called IFTTT. Every photo on my iPhone is sent as a copy to my Evernote account IFTTT notebook (I LOVE Evernote). That way, if I ever say, drop my phone in water, my photos are saved. I won’t lose precious memories of my kids. The photos on my iPhone are NOT the best photos of my kids, but they are the memories and moments of my kids. I want to be sure to preserve them.
I’m a big cheerleader for backing up your content, be it pictures or documents. Get it off site, out of your house, print it out and save it somewhere. Right now, god forbid your house burns down RIGHT now, do you have photos saved somewhere other than your computer or phone? All my photos are saved!
Happy memory making,
xo,
Alicia
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