What do you do with your vacation photos?
3I went on an epic vacation, we took ~3000 photos, and then… What do you do with them? After putting a small selection on [insert social media of choice], it just seems like we store them in a backup somewhere and forget about them. Kind of makes me wonder why I take photos at all, to be honest.
I’ve thought about printing them/putting them in frames or making a photo book, but it seems out of place in our relatively bare house. Anyone else have clever ideas?
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Make sure to create a 2nd folder that has all of your favorites in it. In 5 years when you really want to go back and find that one awesome photo, sifting through 40 favorites is way easier than 3,000.
Or use some photo managing software that helps you keep track of them, or star them or whatever. I used to really like Pikasa for this, but haven’t been using it much lately since I’m doing most of my editing in Lightroom.
I like to print my favorites when I get a chance, although I’ve been doing less of this lately. I do frame favorites when I get a chance, and sometimes print awesome ones on canvas (I’ve been into photography for years and have an awesome camera, so they look great…)
Arts Cow is a great place (although it has a horrid name) for printing photos cheaply, especially if you’re printing a bunch.
@luvche21 How do you end up not filling all of your walls and shelves with photos and photo albums?
@metageist I’ll admit, we’re a little weird when it comes to photos, and we’ve just moved into a new much bigger space. I have LOADS of photos that are printed and housed in boxes. There’s something about printed photos that I like a lot more than seeing them digitally. That’s the artistic side that I like, printing them helps me really see what the photo looks like.
We’re planning on doing something like this in the nearish future with photos from our trips and hikes:
@luvche21
Get a good feather duster.
@luvche21 This is just what I want to do up my stairs!
@luvche21 Check out groove book and use code MYFREEBOOK to get the 1st book free. has an app and you can put 40-100 pic in a book shipped to you for 2.99 shipping is free. every month you get a nice picture booked mailed to you, and you can always order more books if you wish.
@mehbee Let me know if you try it out, I’d be interested in seeing how it turns out for someone and what you learned (unless I beat you to it!)
@dtwsportsfan I’ll check them out, thanks! What size of book does that make?
@dtwsportsfan Oh wow, that’s an awesome deal. I am going to look that up. Even if I do a book for a different person each month. Is the app called Groove Book or is it a website?
Generally speaking I get home, forget to do anything with them, and then months later dump them into a folder on my file server and forget about them some more. Eventually I go and look at them, but not usually for several years.
@jbartus That’s my usual plan, but this time it feels like these are supposed to be more special (African safari) so therefore, I should do something more momentous with them.
@metageist Get a digital picture frame and fill it with your favorite 100 or so photos?
@jbartus if only I could find a site that would sell me consumer goods like a digital photo frame at some sort discount, maybe once a day…
@metageist I would definitely do something special for those pics! I think a photo book would be awesome, you can put captions and other things to really tell the story of your vacation. Groupon usually has really good deals on them. I’ve used Shutterfly and Printerpix with great results. I’m so jealous of your safari trip!
I print them via this spectacular company:
http://g4hn.fnd.to/flagprints
@connorbush What do you do with them after you print them? Photo album or frames?
@metageist print them for free with the aforementioned company (mostly free). I magnet them to my fridge, make albums, frame the especially neat ones, give some as gifts, tiny photo books, all sorts of things.
@connorbush Do you already use Flag? And is it limited to pictures I take on my phone? …my phone camera is kind of lame.
This sounds super awesome. If you have prints on hand, would you mind measuring something for me? All of them look like they have white borders around them - is that border included in the size? For example, for a 4x6 print, is the image 4x6, or is it less than that because they’re making room for the white border?
This looks super awesome and I’m likely to jump in on this sometime, thanks for sharing!
@luvche21 sadly i don’t use this company yet… i print through other avenues. You can customize Flag photos shapes and sizes.
I did fund their most recent kickstarter so soon I shall have free prints for life!
@connorbush Thanks for the Kickstarter info. I just have to decide which option I want to do.
not take them. I’m allergic to carrying a camera.
I upload everything to google photos and let it make me nice albums and movies on its own, then I look at those.
@Ignorant I’ve always liked the map Google makes with the photos GPS data. kinda neat
Maybe make a collage, or use one of those digital picture frames that were all the rage to show off the pictures?
I don’t take them anymore
Solves the problem
Cut the eyes out of everyone in every picture and circle some people with red sharpie. Big ole x through others.
@gilar1ja I think that’s more fun with high school yearbooks; in this case, I mostly have pictures of animals and the red sharpie method is less compelling.
I love photo books, you can just pile them on the coffee table or a side table or put up a shelf to hold them. You could also make coasters, blankets, if you have a glass table you can put the photos under the glass. I totally agree with the digital photo frame. I just bought one that holds so many because the pics sit on the website rather than a card or USB and it’s the easiest one to load photos. You can import from your camera, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, etc. So any you’ve already placed somewhere are easy to access. You can also give friends and family access to your account. They can load pics to your frame also easy peasy. If you’re interested at all, I bought mine from Amazon and it’s called Nixplay I do believe.
What’s a vacation? Seriously. Haven’t had one of those things since being forced onto disability ten years ago. NO, this is NOT a vacation! Fixed income at one third of household income at time of becoming disabled, not counting lost benefits, financial ruin, etc.
And, what’s photographs since film photography has become all but extinct? I’m left with, now worthless, Nikon professional film camera equipment since I missed out on being able to unload it at the opportune time, and switch to digital, because of health issues, long recovery from very major surgery, physical rehab, and the like. Shite! Oh, boo-hoo! Right?
@Lurker I don’t know, hipsters brought back polaroids. I still believe film photography has a place but you’d definitely have to get creative to find it. (I’m not that creative, I can’t even do something with silly vacation photos without asking for help.)
@metageist @Lurker most of the photographers, professional and hobbyist say that they totally miss film photography and a lot of them still own and use film cameras. In fact, I have heard several recently that are using them when they do events. They bring both digital and film cameras and switch off so if you do want to get rid of your equipment there may be a market. On top of that most lenses are still valid to use on digital cameras.
I love looking through pictures when I’m bored with the internet, which is often. I’m paranoid about cloud storage so I have all photos on a hard drive which is backed up to yet another hard drive. I look through them often enough that I don’t mind not printing them out, however; I just finished a project to assemble a huge photo book on Shutterfly for my mom. I haven’t received it yet, but if the print quality is acceptable, I’m thinking about ordering a few more for myself and some for gifts for the relatives.
For vacations specifically, photo books seem like a great idea. Fun to look at once in awhile, and fun for friends and family to flip through when you’re entertaining.
@alexthegirl I agree. I have three right now, well four I got my new one today. I just started doing them with a "subject " or theme. The first two I did were Groupons about to expire so I picked random pics but tried to put them in a decent order. My most recent had a theme and my next I think will be like a best of vacation pics. Not one vacation but my favorite shots from multiple trips. I’m hoping I actually give myself time to put captions and whatnot this time. Procrastination is my normal practice though…sigh.
@alexthegirl I bought a portable storage drive or whatever they are called for my photos. I’m extremely paranoid I’m going to lose them. My goal is to go through all my thumb drives and keep the best on the portable in an organized fashion. A girl can dream.
@mehbee @alexthegirl I got a coupon code for Shutterfly for a free photobook, maybe I’ll just try it. My mom loves them as gifts, I just feel weird making one for myself.
@metageist It couldn’t hurt to try it. I can post a few pics of the ones I have if it would help at all.
@mehbee Thanks for the offer! But I think my biggest problem is a reluctance to make “stuff” for my house rather than inspiration or interest.
If you have that many photos, and they are varied enough in color content, do a photo mosaic with them.
There are many companies that help do these- here’s one of a wedding photo collection.
https://www.picturemosaics.com/photomosaics/id/3
Maybe even do a portrait of Irk with your vacation pics?
@zachdecker Well they do tend to be a lot of sand and khaki colored grass with random animal in the middle. But a mosaic is a very interesting idea that I had not considered. Thanks!
What’s a “vacation” ?
@metageist Maybe post some here? (A bit green here)
I make a couple backup copies of all photos. Next a file with best photos these might be cropped, enhanced ect. Next folder is a representative small set. The small version is usually printed as a “show everyone where I went” short sweet and not overwhelming version. For me and close friends I can bore to death, the middle favorite bunch. For Mom I print and make my own book. I have seen good and bad printings from several companies. I did not see the photos they had to start with so I do not judge the company by the results. I like the option to take thousands of photos and poke through them later. I do admit it can be a time consuming job later.
tldr: Share some pictures. Make copies and pick your best shots to share and print.
@speediedelivery @metageist I totally agree with speedie, I’d love to see a few of your favorites
@mehbee @speediedelivery
A lion with an unusual headrest
African fish eagle
@metageist Wow. My favorite animals are the big cats but that fish eagle one is stunning. My inexperienced eye says that should be entered in photo contests. I think you need to set up a digital frame.
I need to work on my vacation fund. Anybody want to go where metageist went?
I haven’t been on a vacation since 2003. So, there’s that.