Not only do I have all the photos I have taken in the last 25 years but I have the majority of photos from our extended family also. It started several years ago when my mother in law handed me a box full of old photographs. Then my husband’s grandmother passed away and no one in the family wanted the photos. That is my son’s history there was no way I would let anyone throw those photos away.
Out of necessity I had to come up with a creative way to sort and store the mountain of photographs that were flowing into my house. I highly recommend sending your spouse and kids to the movies for an afternoon; make it a double feature if you can convince them to be gone that long. The only way to get started is just diving in to the mound of photos. Initially sort the photos into 6-10 broad categories. Then sort those categories into smaller more manageable categories. My categories were broken apart into people and time frames. And finally the smaller categories of photos were put in chronological order.
Current photos were already sorted in the original envelopes from the photo shop. And it was easy to identify and chronologically sort the photos of my childhood. My husband’s childhood photos were fairly easy to pick out. Don’t tell him but I can spot those ears a mile away. Putting his photos in a logical order became more difficult. There were several visual clues in each photo that allowed me to start grouping his photos together. Homes, cars, shoes and hairstyles were the quickest way for me to identify the timeline from birth to graduation for my husband. Photos of extended family dating back almost 100 years became another challenge for me. Luckily one side of my husband’s family is very Italian with distinctive features.
There is a reason for all my compulsive photo sorting. I have been creating DVD slide shows to share with our family.