Ask Unclutterer: Organizing photographs

Unclutterer

via Ask Unclutterer: Organizing photographs.

Has a pretty interesting take on photographs, as clutter. However, it has not been my experience that the original owner is not usually the person who wants to scan them. Estates are probably the number one reason why this topic comes up. Family reunions are probably a close second. Right now I am in process of scanning a few thousand pictures.

Here is what I have in the queue:

• My wedding pictures (negatives) and some college pictures
• Old slides from my dad
• Old pictures from grandparents’ estate
• my mom’s parents
• my dad’s parents
• my wife’s grandma

Realistically, most of the effort is taking out/putting in album and identifying. The actually scanning is the easy part. That’s why ScanCafe and other scanning services are not that much of a time saving. The risk is the outright lost of your pictures (lost in the mail, mishandled, damaged, etc.).

I guess my point is people are more likely to scan (usually other people pictures) to share vs. reclaiming space in their house. I, personally, don’t have a lot of attachment to the originals after their scanned I don’t mind returning them to the owner or share with other family; However, never throw away pictures.