Save Your Photos Month: How We Can Better Understand Ourselves and Our Memories
Photos have become a staple in our lives, where we probably see and use dozen or hundreds of pictures every week. We see them everywhere we go, be it on our Instagram post feeds, covers of our favorite books, or the large billboards that proudly stand on top of our highways. It really is a phenomenon that has become an essential in our society since its inception in 19th century.
No doubt, our generation is never photo-less; we take photos almost every day and we see other’s photos perhaps every minute. And, on the Internet, there are even more photos than we could ever imagine. These photos are overwhelmingly numerous that they start to feel like burdens; we just want to get rid of these photos.
I’m also guilty from such thing. I tend to take too many photos that when I looked back to my old albums on my computer, there are thousands of them. Some of them are old photos I took with my old pocket camera, and some others are taken with my DSLR. Most of my photos are impromptu shots, while as my album reaches more recent time, it’s become more mindful shots, where I had to think about composition and colors.
I considered most of my photos are less than a burden because they use so much storage, and I decided to delete them. But then, I found #SaveYourPhotosMonth, where here, it changed my perspective about my photos and I cancelled my attempt to erase them permanently.
When I first learn photography, I put a mindset that I should take photos that matter, that is worthy to be saved or be my computer’s wallpaper. However, I didn’t really think this through, as I’m confused how to save my photos, and how I should take less photos and therefore understand my photos and memories they capture.
Save Your Photos Month become this defining moment in which it become a reminder for me to start learning to manage my photo properly, and help me understand myself as a person, and refining my memories back.
We are all at some points in life become too busy with lots of stuffs, and sometimes, those businesses don’t leave a room for our memories or our time cherishing our memories. So, with that said, I’ll share my experiences on saving and managing my photos and how we can better cherish our memories and exploring ourselves;
Curate stories, not visuals
The greatest photos don’t have to be the most visually appealing, i.e. those with Golden Thumb or Golden Ratio composition; they’re the ones that contain the most engaging stories. Say, you have lots of photos of your vacation to a beach with friends. In my case, I tend to seek which ones that inflict emotional engagements, which are my friends’ jovial laughs, that pretty woman under the coconut tree, or hermit crabs I caught.
Photos like these are more worthy than pictures of landscapes or portraits of strangers in our street photo hunt. Who knows that those memories may be the last?
Less is more
My friend once showed their photos of an overseas vacation, and all I see is pretty much nothing but selfies. Since I’m not a selfie person, I asked them on why there are so many selfies. They said they forgot to delete them, since it’s just too much of a hard work. I don’t know exactly how much, but scrolling that long may indicate that it could be hundreds of them.
You’ll be amazed at how much you will get if you save less photos. I’ve been experiencing with this and I agree that less is indeed more; we get to focus on what matters and discard that doesn’t. I remember that during a New Year trip, I took a lot of photos (maybe a hundred and so), but I only save a few. My uncle, who’s also taking photos during the trip, only save a few as well, and print only one, and it’s one of the most engaging photos I’ve ever seen: a picture of my family and I on a traditional canoe. Thanks to that photo, I can still remember how peaceful it was there.
Put dates or hashtags in caption or description
Some photos apps like Google Photos or Apple Photos let you put description or caption on your photos. Since it’s a ‘description,’ we’re tempted to give a verbose explanation about what’s happening. Well, in several cases, that may work, but how about lessen the words and focus on what matters the most: dates and keywords.
As what I’ve learnt from my experiences, our photos should be the one that tell stories, not words. All we need to help us remember moments in photos are dates and keywords/hashtags only. With this, our photos will show a better story without our eyes being distracted with lengthy words. Think it as how we’re better suited with short titles than long ones.
Save it for yourself — no, really
In the times of social media, we always think that whatever we don’t upload or share means it’s not worth doing, since no one don’t or can’t know about it. But such thinking may trigger us to do the same thing every time we have a moment or two; we only get invested to do things just to show people that may even not wanting such thing.
I learned this the hard way: when I’m still using Instagram and Facebook, I almost always upload photos of whatever moments I had. Yes, some of my friends liked them, but I felt disengaged at the actual moment, as I was doing things just so I have something else to post at social media. Maybe, some photos are better off from it and best fit into our memories or those who really want to see and appreciate it outside of social media’s rapid engagement.
Print your most precious photos
If you have the time and budget to do this, feel free to do it right now! Maybe you’ve seen photo albums of your parents or grandparents, but how about your photo album?
There’s nothing more special than printed photos. It’s just that feeling when you get to touch and feel the photo, or looking at it without digital interferences. Also, you’ll get more focused at the photo, therefore having better grasp at its stories and the moment it captures. This is why I often feel photos that were taken when I was little are different than those I took myself.
So, what are you waiting for? From the first photo in our history to this very article, have you got photos that you just want to revisit without the guilty feeling that you must sacrifice it for your device’s storage?
I hope with these Save Your Photos Month tips, you’ll be better at cherishing memories as well as better understanding on yourself and people around you. Best of luck!
