You guys, I get it. You love your photos. You really do. But you take so many that you are completely overwhelmed. Like, totally shut down. I was there. As you can see in the image above, I have over 8,000 photos from 2015. Me. A professional photo organizer who is meticulous about going through and deleting unnecessary images. So I can only imagine the volumes of photos those of you who do NOTHING with your photos must have.

To prep for the launch of my new product offering, Year In Hand Family Yearbooks, I felt I should have one of my own to use as a sample. I always feel more comfortable marketing my own products vs. using products with my client's photos in them. In March 2016, I started to design a yearbook for my own family and by August 2016, I hadn't even completed the photo selection process. It took me over FIVE months to go back through the 8,000+ photos to even decide what should be in the yearbook. It was exhausting. I LOVE my photos. I love looking at them; I love the memories and feelings they evoke. I marvel at how my kids are growing and changing and yet, I tired of the process. 8,193 photos, y'all. From ONE year. Ugh.

Going through that process for my own family only solidified that my greatest desire is to solve this problem for you. Yes, you. The family memory keeper. The one who loves taking photos of your family. The one who loves documenting the up's and down's of your life story. And yet, the one who rarely looks at them again, if ever, after you click that shutter. You owe it to your family to share your stories, to reminisce on the good times and maybe even the bad. To laugh at the grumpy face in the photo or the sharpie drawn all over your walls. To re-live special vacations and the daily minutae that you deem important enough to capture.
​
I set out to design a service that would be simple, not overwhelming, and cost-effective, not cost-prohibitive. Signing up for Year In Hand Family Yearbooks monthly subscription service will cost you less than a Starbucks a day and will reward you with a stunning retrospective of your family's prior year to proudly display in your home. A gorgeous book that will allow you to bond with your family, to share your stories and to enjoy your photos again. The process is a breeze! I set you up with a privately shared Dropbox folder and send you a monthly e-mail reminder to send me your favorite photos from the prior month. I design your book as we go and you get to review & make edits quarterly. That's it! That's all you have to do! Send me 30-40 of your favorite pics each month and shortly into the New Year, you'll receive the best gift of all: a full-color retrospective of your family's memories, sitting right in your hands.

If you're one of the 2 out of 3 parents who don't enjoy managing your family's photos or one of the 60% of families who haven't printed a photo book in FIVE years, don't hesitate to contact me today!

Photos courtesy of Yehudis Goldfarb Photography

Downsizing your home can be stressful and overwhelming. When my grandmother relocated from the apartment she’d lived in for decades, it was filled with things... SO.MANY.THINGS. Shoes, clothes, magazines, trinkets and, of course, her life’s worth of photos. Everything was piled everywhere, hardly any of it being stored properly. Her photos ended up being distributed between her three children, thus separating her life’s story into three new households. Her story matters* and so does yours. Your life’s story is a treasure for your grandchildren and the future generations of your family. Studies have shown that KNOWING their family history, their family’s struggles and triumphs, has a tremendous impact on a child's self-esteem.
 
Your photos are an IMPORTANT piece of this legacy. Photos allow future generations to literally SEE what life was like in the past, the clothes, the cars, the households their elders lived in. In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “The times, they are a-changin’,” and nowadays at an unbelievably fast rate. Having an organized photo collection helps document your story to show future generations what life was like in the “olden days.”
 
But where to start? Many of my clients feel completely overwhelmed when they reach out to me for help. Photos are strewn throughout their households, in closets, drawers and boxes. Many of them have inherited photos from loved ones and they’re at a loss as to how to begin the task. There are a few simple steps you can take to organize and ultimately DOWNSIZE your photo collection.

1. Go through your home and pull out your photos from all their many hiding spots. Check under beds, in drawers, closets, your basement, wherever you think your photos may be hiding. Collect all the photos you can find and put them in one location of your home. With my clients, it’s often the dining room. This will give you a great idea of the size of your collection and the task at hand.
2. Most importantly, don’t let the size of your collection overwhelm you. Tackle the organization project one box or bin at a time for an hour at a time. You might find that looking through your photos and reminiscing can be emotionally draining.
3. Find a large table in which to work. When sorting through your boxes, put photos into piles according to categories. For example, childhood, school days, birthdays, weddings, children, pets, cousins, etc.
4. At the end of each working day, keep the piles intact by placing them into gallon-size Ziploc bags.
5. Once you have categorized all the photos in your collection, take each category one at a time, look through them carefully and throw away any duplicates, any photos of people you can’t remember, blurry photos that have no meaning, excessive scenery, etc.
6. Once this pruning step is complete for ALL categories, you can then arrange your neatly categorized piles into an archival-quality photo storage box. These often have separate sections inside that you can label according to category. For example, the section might be titled “Weddings” and each individual tab can then be labeled with the names of those people getting married.

 
And voila! Your project is complete! Depending on the size of your collection, you may whittle your collection down to just ONE storage box. One of my clients ended her project with three boxes that each held 2,400 photos. However, she is now able to open the boxes and clearly see photos from her travels, from family reunions, school reunions, etc.  And when her nieces and nephews come to visit, she is able to sit with them and share her life’s adventures with them in a meaningful way.
 
 *My grandmother passed away suddenly in May 2014 and like the cobbler with no shoes for her family, I never found the time to document her stories. I had strong intentions to have her select 20 of her favorite photos, document her stories about each of those photos and create a book of her memories. Alas, I lost my chance. I have to rely on the memories of the stories she told me, and to be honest, I don’t have a very robust memory. Born in 1923, she lived a fascinating life and I want my two children to know the substantive woman who was their great-grandmother. So if this article does nothing else, I hope it inspires you to start documenting your legacy both for your current family and future generations. Your STORY matters.

This week I read an article about a California couple whose camera bag was stolen while they were enjoying a day at Disneyland. In it were all the memory cards they owned filled with every last photo and video they'd taken since their baby girl was born. They are now pleading with the public via social media for those cards to be returned. This sad story got me thinking about our memories and how misguided many of us are about how to properly store and archive our photos.

First and most importantly, memory cards aren't ideal for long-term storage of your photos. They're small, easily lost and/or stolen and are more fragile than, say, an external hard drive. If you DO choose to use them as long-term storage and they are the ONLY place you have your photos, then by all means, store them some place secure, like an in-home fire-proof safe or in a bank deposit box. Carrying around and traveling with your entire photo collection of your first born baby in your camera bag is a disaster waiting to happen. And in this couple's case, DID happen.

Second, and I've written about it before, your photos need to be backed up in several locations. For instance, an external hard drive at home, an external hard drive at a friend or neighbor's home, prints of your 5-star photos and somewhere in the cloud. This means that if your hard drive crashes or your house burns down, you'll always have another copy of your photos accessible elsewhere. All too often, when disaster strikes, we see on the news that the main possession people come back to find are their photos and the memories and comfort they provide.

Third, so many of us harbor stress and anxiety around losing our photos, yet don't take the proper steps to back them up. It's not rocket science and does take a little effort, but once you have a solid back-up system in place, you can rest easy knowing that you'll never lose all those precious memories. And removing even one source of stress in our lives can make a HUGE difference!

It’s safe to say many of us have experienced the following: grieving a lost loved one, tasked with cleaning out their home and coming across a photo collection piled into dusty cardboard boxes. So what do we DO with these photos?

First, determine the best family member to take ownership. I have a client who found out from a sibling that her grandmother’s boxes of photos were out on the curb waiting for the trash truck to pick them up. Her father, for whatever reason, felt no emotional connection to the thousands of photos his mother left behind. However, those photos were extremely meaningful to this woman’s grandchildren. So they were rescued from the curb and ended up at my client’s house where, even though she knew she wanted them, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them (more on that in the steps below.) So if you’re tasked with clearing out a home and have no desire to keep the photos yourself, ask your family who’s interested in taking them. I can guarantee you that photo collection is valuable to somebody.

Second, take your time. Sometimes the grief is too raw and painful to dive right in and start an organizing project. I had a client hold on to her sibling’s photos for years before she initiated work with me. And even then, there were moments of breathtaking pain as she sorted through her sister’s memories. But there can also be moments of sheer joy. Another client who stored her mother’s photos for years was surprised to see baby pictures of herself that she’d never seen before. So, store them well, in enclosed boxes to keep the dust at bay, in a temperature-controlled area either in your house or at a storage facility. They’ve lasted this many years, so another few months or years won’t damage them beyond repair.

And third, when it’s time, enjoy the organizing process. You’ll find it easier simply because they aren’t YOUR photos. You won’t recognize half the people in the pictures, so you can either pass them along to another family member who might or you can throw them away with minimal guilt. Also, it’s a wonderful opportunity to get to know your loved one better, to see through their eyes what they felt was important enough to document on film. One of my clients found dozens of pictures her grandmother took of flower arrangements. At the start, she wanted to keep them, but as the process moved along, and we found more and more of them, she realized she could toss most of them. Still, she found humor in the photos and was able to learn a little bit more about the grandmother she’d lost. It’s always difficult to lose a loved one, but the photo legacy they leave behind can be a great source of comfort as you move through your grieving journey.

As tempting as these Groupon and Living Social offers might appear, you are trusting these companies with your precious memories. You ship your photos, home movies, slides or negatives away, trust the provider to handle them with care and return them safely back to you. Oftentimes, my clients are stressed just imagining shipping these items away; however, did you know that many of these companies further outsource your memories? Sometimes even to foreign shores? A quick scan of Yelp reviews for these companies are enough to keep me away from their tempting offers.

While I know the price is right, your memories are one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable, so isn't it more valuable to place them into hands you can trust?

If high-speed scanning and/or slide, negative, and home movie conversions are what you're looking for, trust me, your certified photo organizer, when I recommend you avoid those Groupon deals and stick with a highly reputable company such as Fotobridge. I have personally met the owner and am looking forward to seeing her again at the APPO Conference this week. I know that once your memories arrive at their New Jersey facility, that is where they stay. I know your memories are handled with kid gloves from the minute they arrive. I know they have NEVER lost anyone's memories. And I know, while you might never see their services discounted on Groupon, you will NEVER be disappointed with the quality and level of service you'll receive when working with them.

So give the gift of scanning this Valentine's Day. Any orders* placed using the code McCourt01 will receive an extra set of JPG DVDs at NO COST. Hooray! It's no Groupon, but you can rest assured your precious memories will be in the best hands!

*Code expires Tuesday, February 18th

We all lead busy lives… so busy that even the things we enjoy the most get put off not just by days, but possibly by months, maybe even years. And like many of my clients, I am very often too busy to ENJOY my photos. But 2014 is the year we’re changing all that, right???

I am embarrassed to say that in the summer of 2013, I ordered a phenomenal new photo product called WeMontage, a customized, removable photo collage wallpaper. I was SO excited, I couldn’t WAIT for the package to arrive. At the time, the smallest size you could order was a 4’ x 6’ panel, so that’s what I ordered. And even though I’d marked out the dimensions on my wall, it wasn’t until the package arrived that I realized just how large that really is. But back to my embarrassment. So my beautiful WeMontage wallpaper arrived in August 2013 and can you guess when we got around to hanging it? January. 2014. Seriously. When I think about it, that’s just ridiculous. But the truth is, it was TOTALLY worth the wait. I now have this stunning collage of my family with larger-than-life photos proudly displayed on a wall that is the focal point for guests entering my home. I have received so many compliments on the product and it has inspired me to share my ideas for its application with practically everyone I meet.

Throughout the entire process, I have gotten to know WeMontage’s owner, James Oliver, and he is simply fabulous. He is so pumped about his product and will bend over backwards to please his clients. He is uber-responsive and so very helpful every step of the way. He listened and responded to feedback from clients wishing for smaller sizes and now offers a 2' x 3' poster-size, too. I envision his product in yoga studios with images of serene landscapes, in gymnastics facilities with images of all the young team gymnasts, in dorm rooms (what a great graduation gift!), in schools, in offices, and of course, in our homes.

So if you’re looking for a creative, one-of-a-kind way to display photos in your home or business, check out WeMontage today. If you'd like assistance creating your own, I would be thrilled to help and can offer you 10% off the retail price through the month of February. Contact me today and let’s get started helping YOU enjoy YOUR photos again this year!

I can hardly believe it myself, but Christmas is officially less than 100 days away! That means it’s definitely not too early to start thinking about how you’d like to incorporate your photos into amazing and unique holidays gifts for all your loved ones.

Here are 15 of my favorite photo gifts (in no particular order) and why I love them:

1) Digital Photo Books: The classic, can’t-go-wrong gift that your loved ones will cherish for years to come. There are so many publishers to choose from, but you won’t go wrong with either of my favorites: Shutterfly and My Publisher. My Publisher has a lovely, simple Pocket-sized book at a great price point that is perfect for sharing your family’s photos with grandparents and other family friends.

2) Digital Photo Slideshows: Easily my favorite photo product because pairing your photos to music never fails to pack an emotional punch. I love to make slideshows for not only major events like milestone birthdays, memorials and vacations, but also of day-to-day events, like an afternoon at the pool or a month’s worth of photos of my children. Regardless of the theme you choose, seeing your photos in this format will ramp up the emotional impact and is likely to bring the viewer to tears (in a good way!)   You can make free slideshows with Smilebox and Magisto to name a few.

3) Photo Calendars: It all started with one calendar gifted to my mom years ago... now it is a yearly tradition that both my mom and mother-in-law have come to expect. It’s the photo gift that keeps on giving each and every month of the year. I love that not only can you design the top half, but you can also personalize the bottom half with photos added to the date squares to mark special events like birthdays. And since I’m already making one for the family, I always order an extra copy for myself. I just love looking at each month’s photos and seeing how much my children have grown from that point a year ago. Shutterfly is my personal favorite for calendars.

4) Wall Decor: You take a million pictures. Of course, you want to ENJOY them. So why not hang your favorites on your walls? The old school way would have been to print an enlargement, frame it and hang it up. But now, you can have your photo printed onto an actual canvas to hang on your wall. Canvas wall art is a booming business these days. I see Groupon and Living Social deals for them all the time. Just beware you sometimes get what you pay for. Oftentimes the canvas is stretched across a wood frame that will start to sag with time. Also, the corners can often look messy. If this bothers you, you can work with me to purchase an Artsy Couture canvas, whose quality is bar none. Originally designed for professional photographers to sell to their clients, I have partnered with them giving you the opportunity to use your own PERSONAL photos on their professional-quality products. The product is made right here in the DC metro area, is stretched across a solid piece of wood (so sagging can never occur) and they’re known for the tightest corners in the industry. Artsy Couture also offers Couture Gallery Blocks. These products are also handmade locally and consist of a photo laminated over a solid wood box. They are stunning, to say the least, and are one of the higher-end gifts for this holiday season. WeMontage is a newcomer on the photo decor scene, but one of the most exciting that I know: removable photo wallpaper!!! Just select 12-15 of your favorite photos and you'll receive a stunning sheet of wallpaper to hang. Sizes start at a 2' x 3' poster and go up from there. They can even be customized to your space. So go pick of few of your best shots from the year and display them proudly in your home. If you'd like even more suggestions on how to use photos in your home decor and/or other products available, don't hesitate to contact me any time!

5) Smartphone and Tablet Cases: Almost every one of us owns either a Smartphone or a tablet and have them with us 99.9% of the time. A photo case is an excellent way to keep your favorite photo(s) with you at all times, easily bringing a smile to your face in the midst of a hectic day.

6) Coffee Mugs: Although I’m not a coffee drinker, many in my family are, and they have LOVED the personalized coffee mugs I’ve gifted them through the years. What grandparent wouldn’t want to start the day seeing the smiling faces of their grandkids? What parent wouldn’t love to see the smiling face of their child as they perform their daily grind in the office? Coffee mugs are affordable and make a great gift for the coffee or tea drinker in your life.

7) Magnets: Even more affordable than mugs, magnets are a fabulous way to keep your photos front and center in your home. Select a few of your best photos, design a handful of magnets and voila! Your refrigerator becomes a photo gallery for your family and friends to enjoy.

8) Water Bottles: I don’t know about you, but I carry a water bottle with me everywhere I go. Did you know you can put one of your favorite photos on a stainless steel bottle, creating a unique and eco-friendly gift?

9) Placemats: I’ve shopped for placemats recently and have been sorely disappointed. The selection isn’t great and the prices seem high. A better option would be to design my own placemats that display my photos. How about one for each family member for their special spot at the table? These are also great items for events such as weddings and milestone birthdays. Afterwards, they become a unique party favor for the guests to bring home.

10) Coasters: I think coasters make a great gift because it’s an item people don’t often purchase for themselves and it’s an unexpected place to see a personal photo displayed. You can get them in the standard hardboard version or the upgraded porcelain version that comes complete with a wrought iron stand.

11) Pillowcase & Throw Pillows: Who would have thought you could get a personalized photo pillowcase or throw pillow? Not me!!! I designed one for my daughter several years ago, featuring a photo of her precious Maya (a stuffed lamb she’s had since birth.) She has had the sweetest dreams ever since, resting her head upon her favorite lovey. There are so many ideas for gifting a photo pillowcase/pillow, including using a picture of a loved one who is deployed thereby keeping their memory close to the recipient’s heart while they’re away. I think this is one of the most unique photo gifts because very few people would be expecting one!

12) Photo Quilts and Blankets: Here's a great way to display your favorite photos without making a single hole in the wall: photo quilts and blankets! The quilts become a modern-day family heirloom and can be used either as a bedspread or as a wall hanging. The fleece blankets are super cozy for those cold winter nights and are almost always sprawled across our couch for guests to see.

13) Tree Ornaments: One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is decorating our tree. Unpacking and displaying all the ornaments we have collected through the years. When photos are included on your ornaments, they bring back so many great memories from year to year. So let’s not forget that one of the easiest (and, again, affordable) holiday gifts to give this year is a new ornament for their tree! My mom does a gift exchange with friends each year and has received so many beautiful ornaments for her tree. Why not make your friend a photo ornament memorializing good times spent together? Or spotlight the grandkids on a special ornament that the grandparents can proudly display to all their friends? A tree ornament can also make a special and unique gift for your children’s teachers, too! 

14) Scanning: A non-tangible gift, but an extremely important one, nonetheless. Give the gift of photo scanning to a loved one to assist them in getting their precious memories, be they on prints, slides, negatives or film, digitizing for lifelong preservation. Once these memories are digitized, a whole world opens up for the family to share and re-live those treasured family stories. I highly recommend using a reputable company, such as Fotobridge, to assist with this process. There are many companies looking to profit off your desire to protect your memories, but who, behind the scenes, ship your items to foreign shores where labor comes cheap. When you send your items to Fotobridge, located in New Jersey, that is the first and last stop on their journey. Fotobridge is family owned and operated and I've met them personally. They handle ALL their clients' materials with kid gloves from start to finish and their track record is impeccable. You absolutely can't go wrong with a gift certificate from Fotobridge to help aging parents preserve their legacies. And if the thought of gathering and packing up your photos is too overwhelming, I'd more than happy to facilitate your order!

15) Photo Organizing: Last but not least, consider giving the gift of photo organizing to a loved one. There are so many of us that are completely inundated not just with our digital photos, but with a lifetime of prints as well. A photo organizer can help downsize their collections and consolidate them from multiple boxes and bags into one or more clearly labeled and categorized archival-quality boxes (see Legacy Box in photo slideshow below) that will take up much less room than before. A photo organizer can also help get overwhelmed families back on track with photos that reside on multiple devices and never get enjoyed beyond the occasional Facebook or Instagram post. And most importantly, a photo organizer can work with you to develop a back up plan so that your precious memories are stored in multiple locations and can never be lost permanently to natural disasters or hard drive failures. The gift of photo organizing is a priceless one! Contact me to purchase gift certificates for your loved ones today!

I sure hope I’ve helped kickstart your holiday gift planning with some truly original ideas to get your photos off your computer and into both your life and your loved one’s lives! Enjoy the slideshow below and please feel free to comment on your favorite photo gifts; I’d love to hear your ideas! As always, if you need assistance with any of these items, don’t hesitate to contact me, the sooner the better, to ensure your gifts arrive on time this holiday season!

As part of the human experience, we all lose loved ones. Sometimes after a life long-lived and sometimes entirely too early. Many of us inherit our loved one’s belongings which often include their photo collections. These boxes come home with you, are too painful to face and get pushed into a closet to deal with later.

However, once you’re ready, these photos can be an incredible way to reconnect with your loved one. I have witnessed several clients face these boxes and have seen the comfort their photos bring. You might come across photos of yourself you’ve never seen, happy memories from times shared with your loved one. You’ll also get a glimpse into your loved one's soul, to see the world as they saw it and to learn more about their passions simply by what they chose to photograph. You might learn things about your loved one you never knew, like trips they took or work experiences they didn’t discuss. Our photos become a visual documentation of our lives, a visual autobiography, and viewing your loved one’s photos allows you to experience their lives as seen through their lens.

Once you’ve sorted through your loved one’s photos, it’s important to preserve, protect and share them. A reputable company like Fotobridge can scan and digitize them for you and, in turn, giving copies of the digital files to other family members can become a priceless gift. Making sure they are stored in an archival-quality box in a temperature-controlled area of your house is extremely important. And creating traditional photo albums or digital photo books and slideshows will help you share their memories and bring your loved one’s photos back to life again.

Just as the grieving process differs for everyone, there is no magic amount of time when you’ll be ready to open these boxes and face these photos, but once you're ready, you might be pleasantly surprised at the comfort these photos bring and the sense of intimate connection you feel upon seeing the world through their eyes.

It seems hard to believe, but graduation season is just around the corner... and what better gift to give your graduate than a customized photo product that tells their story, either of their college years, of all their school years, or of their entire life.

Slideshows are a great way to share all their childhood memories at their graduation party. Maybe even throw in a few embarrassing ones to entertain the crowd! I know I have a few photos of my children in mind, already tucked away for that future opportunity... like the ones of my 1-year-old son wearing his older sister's tutus and tiaras. Enjoy these tips from Fotobridge on how to digitize your photos to get them ready.

Another great gift that shows how much you care is a digital photo book that tells their life story. There are so many great photo book providers, including Artifact Uprising, My Publisher, Shutterfly, Picaboo, and Blurb, to name a few. This gift can ground them as they make their way in the world and can remind them of where they came from and of how many people love them.

And don't forget that, fingers crossed, they'll be moving in to their first home (and not back in to yours!) so they'll need some decorations. Canvas wall art depicting close friends or their travel adventures is another great gift idea. Artsy Couture's Couture Canvases are the BEST in the business and were previously available only to professional photographers. I'm thrilled to share that as a member of APPO, I can now provide these products to YOU using your OWN photos!

These days there are so many products to put photos on; the list is endless: Smartphone covers, iPad cases, jewelry, blankets, mugs, magnets, calendars, tote bags, coasters, etc. Do yourself a favor and end the quest for the perfect graduation gift by taking a retrospective look at your family's photo collection and designing a unique and truly priceless gift for your graduate. And, as always, if you like these ideas but have no clue where to start, I'm here to help!