Your story is at risk

Your story is at risk

We hope that you enjoyed our 4 part series on Protecting Your Photos While Travelling. Be sure to flick back through the last 4 weeks of posts if you missed them.

As many of you would be aware September was Save Your Photos Month but of course we want you to consider protecting your photos ALL THE TIME, not just in September. A strong part of our message focuses on PRINTING to PROTECT, and if you are a regular reader of Fairytales – The Blog you would know that our favourite way to print and protect is in photo books.  Part of that reason is the ability to include text, which is not readily available in traditional photo albums.

Today we wanted to remind you that not just your photos but your stories are at risk.

A photo can only capture physical, material and visual things. WHY the photo is important or significant and the story behind the image is not captured or recorded. An image can most certainly evoke emotion and remind you of the event, person or place in the image, but for how long? Your memories can and likely will fade, if not (sadly) deteriorate altogether and of course once you are gone, who will tell the stories unless they have been recorded somewhere?

This is why we encourage anyone making a photo book to remember to include TEXT.  By including text in your photo books either via narrative captions, headings, title pages or full paragraph stories, you are capturing a more meaningful collection of both images and memories.

Take this image for example. It is a great shot. Both kids smiling and well groomed, pop of colour, nice location in front of our letter box.  If I included this image in a photo book, over time I might look at it and feel a wistful longing for my tiny young children (but not be 100% sure of the year), feel pride and love to see Jacob cuddling his little sister and at a closer look might determine the photo must have been taken some time close to Australia Day given the tattoos on their hands and narrow it down to Term 1 as opposed to Term 4 (when summer uniform is also worn).

2016-01-28-waterfall-jacob-first-day-of-yr-2

 

But by choosing to include a narrative caption with this image in my photo book I was able to capture much more meaning.  I wrote;

“28.01.16 – Our baby is off to School!  Waterfall like most Primary Schools have a staggered return to school each year.  Gabi, having looked forward to heading off to ‘big school’ all summer was in her uniform by 6am and insisted on accompanying Jacob to his first day of Year 2 before she officially started Kindergarten herself the following Monday.”

You can see below that I have highlighted how my narrative follows the principals of the digital photo file naming conventions (when, where, who and why) that we recommend to our clients.

“28.01.16 (WHEN) – Waterfall (WHERE) like most Primary Schools have a staggered return to school each year.  Gabi, (WHO) having looked forward to heading off to ‘big school’ all summer was in her uniform by 6am and insisted on accompanying Jacob (WHO) to his first day in Year 2 before she officially started Kindergarten herself the following Monday. (WHY)” 

You’ll notice that my narrative caption reveals a lot more than the a basic: “Off to school”  or “28.01.16”caption would do. Without including this thoughtful narrative, the story of what was important about this image would be lost over time. So whilst often you might think that the well presented photos in a carefully laid out, delightfully styled photo book is enough to evoke emotion and help recall stories in years to come, you could be wrong. With the narrative, you can see how this photo takes its place as a more complex record of a special time in our lives and a milestone point in our family history.

What a meaningful story the photo AND the narrative make to pass on!

Have a magical day

5 Comments
  • The Filing Fairies | 2 things you can do today, to prepare for your next family photo book creation
    Posted at 10:07h, 06 February

    […] Each year I create a photo book for our family. How many photos and how long the book is, will be influenced by any holidays or milestone special events but it is usually around 250 images in 60-100 pages. It includes photos arranged in chronological order, grouped into ‘chapters’ month by month. This annual photo book tells the story of what was happening in our lives that year, told in images and narrative. […]

  • Kylie J
    Posted at 22:09h, 04 March

    Love this post. I have a couple of years of family albums sitting in Blurb waiting for a good sale to come around to print them, you’ve just inspired me to go back and add more information and stories. Thank you!

    • admin
      Posted at 14:48h, 07 March

      that’s great news thanks for letting us know

  • The Filing Fairies | P.L.E.A.S.E. transform your old photos into modern books
    Posted at 09:04h, 11 September

    […] Your Story Is At Risk […]

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    Posted at 10:13h, 16 December

    […] Your Story Is At Risk […]