I've posed this question to several online groups that I I belong to, but I'm looking for MANY opinions, and I think this is a good forum to ask this question.
Recently, I've been cleaning and culling out all the junk in my house. I came across some photo albums. As I was going through them, I realized that all these pictures are from a part of my life that doesn't mean that much to me.
There are pictures of a lot of people that I just do NOT remember. Yeah, I may remember the event, but the names all escape me, and quite frankly, I am not sure that I want these. They remind me of a part of my life that no longer exsists.
Along with that, there are pictures from three weddings. Three weddings that have failed. I generally took a lot of pictures at weddings because I always like to create wedding albums for gifts. I kept a copy of the prints, of course. Now, these weddings have failed and for all I know, the wedding albums I created have been tossed. so...do I keep these pictures?
I have pictures of my dad and his 3rd wife...of his house being built (double jeopardy there, my ex helped build it), of Christmas time, of step-siblings...what do I do with all of this?
I was considering keeping some of the wedding pics and creating a scrapbook layout about failures and how life goes on...is that tacky?
And I've only gotten through SOME of the pictures. Yeah, they were part of my life, and some might argue that I should keep them...but if I honestly don't remember the names or the faces, are they worth keeping?
Let me know your opinions, PLEASE!!!!
Friday, September 08, 2006
Question for Y'all
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12 comments:
I'm kind of torn. As a photographer, its sacrilege to throw out an image, regardless if it stays in a box forever. However, as a committed de-junkifier it makes sense to me. Does that help?
If you find no worth in the picture.. and it doesn't have to be of sentimental value but you simply like the shot much the same as a still life then there is no need to keep it.
For the ones you can; if you wished; you could offer some of the ones to the people you took the photograph of. They may wish to keep it or, in the case of failed marriages.. make a dart board out of it.
Otherwise, if you can't put a good story for your future chidren and grandchildren to the picture, and you otherwise don't want it.. toss them.
Here from Michele's
Michele sent me, Linda.
I vote to keep them. I'm sure they don't take up all that much room, Linda. And the thing is, we get kinda weird when we get old, and want to see where we've been. At that time you might kick yourself if you toss the albums. I guess saving them for your "golden years" is a bit silly sounding now, but it won't seem silly if you want to see them way down the road.
I have been faced with a lot of photos of people and places I know nothing about. Some I can toss, but some of them I know would be valuable to someone, somewhere, and I cann't be the one to throw them away. Donate them to a flea market, thrift shop, antique store, etc. Someone will love them. Some people use photos in making collages or other artwork or jewelry.
Michele sent me.
Toss 'em.
Susan
When I was a teenager, I tossed all of my old photos and now 18 years later...I would die to have them again.
People come in and out of your life but sometimes they come back again. And at that point you may want to look at those photos. I am also with sol on the thought that someone may want the photos.
Just because you feel like you are in a different place in your life doesn't mean that later on down the road you may want to reminisce
oh btw, Michele sent me.
I vote CHUNK 'EM. If you a) don't know who the people are, b) don't care who the people are and c) don't want to remember you ever knew who the people are...why oh why would you waste precious storage space on them??
When I left TX and my whole life behind, I threw out (and I am not kidding) about 1000 pictures. Just stuff. People I don't know. People who chronically married and divorced. People I barely tolerated. it felt liberating to toss them all. I did however offer a huge envelope of pictures of my ex's grandparents who had passed on. if you think the person's family will want them, be kind and share them. If not, don't look back.
:)
As a photographer, I feel it is important to keep them. You never know when someone will pick them up and want to follow the story that is you: warts and all. The alternative is a story with holes in it.
I suggest you take the pictures that mean nothing to you and store them in a shoebox up in the attic. Your "meaningful" pictures can go into the albums for display. This two-tiered approach has represented a nice compromise in our house, where we, too, have lots of old images we'd rather not revisit.
Hope that helps. Great question!
Potential options for 'discardable pictures':
1. give family and friends dibs
2. store 'em
3. trash 'em
4. donate them to the school - for art class/creative writing projects.
I'm such a packrat, but with photos, I only keep them if they really mean something to me, and then I try and keep them in frames where I'll see them all the time. So I'm biased and I'll say not to keep them, but do I really deserve a vote? I just popped in here from... gosh, I don't even remember! It was a friend of a friend of a friend of Michele's. I'm just cruising around to say hi... oh yeah, so HI! :)
Well, as a scrapbooker, I think that all of the events in our lives good and bad shape the person we are. You may not think that it is part of a life that you don't have/know/want to know but they are all still part of the YOU you are today. I would keep 'em and scrap 'em....I plan to scrap Dad's wedding to Charline as the beautiful event it was then with perhaps some hidden journaling as to how it ended.
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