Photo Mess Resolutions? 4 Steps to Start Fixing It Now!

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Got photos in your Near Year’s resolutions this year? This blog is definitely geared for anyone who has piles, boxes, envelopes, old albums and more of photos, slides and negatives that need some work. And, it is geared for anyone who has camera cards, smart phone picture libraries, tablets, computers, social media full of photos that need to be saved. If you have photos in both print and digital chaos, here are three steps to start fixing it now.

STEP ONE – Traditional printed photos, slides & negatives – Start collecting all of your pictures into one place in your home. Having all of your photos, etc. in one area will help you figure out what you are dealing with and making a priority list.

STEP TWO – Digital photos – Create a folder on your computer with a name you’ll remember (My Favorite Pictures, Super Special Pictures Collection or Smith Family Photos). Start saving all of your photos to this one folder including downloading them from emails, social media and more. You can create subfolders for each date, event, etc. We recommend the naming convention of YYYY-MM-DD Description – which will help your folders display in date order properly. For example:

  • 2014-12-10 Christmas Concert
  • 2014-12 December Phone Photos
  • 2014 – Social Media Downloaded Photos

STEP THREE – Be consistent with working on your photos – always put your printed photos you are given or photos that you find with the other photos you have organized. For your digital photos, each week take time to download photos to your Picture Folder, transfer photos from your devices to that folder.

STEP FOUR – Plan the time and a location to work on bringing it all together. Some of our clients at Pixologie have had over 15,000 printed photos, 200,000 digital photos or over 100 years worth of photo mess. An average photo collection of our clients includes 12,000 to 16,000 moments and memories. If you are in a similar situation, you will not get this done in a day at home.

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Get out of the house on a photo retreat for a weekend or come to Pixologie for a workshop and ongoing studio time to get motivation, tips, ongoing cheerleading and inspiration to continue on getting your photos out of chaos and back into life to be celebrated and shared.

Here’s Pixologie’s offering of services, products and workshops to help you get started.

We’d love to you help you with a plan – don’t hesitate to call, email or Facebook us if you have questions on how to get started with your New Year’s photo resolutions!

web: www.pixologieinc.com

email: contact@pixologieinc.com

phone: 414-731-1881

Don’t Make This Mistake – Holiday Lights Tour!!!

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Two Caveats to This Holiday Lights Post:

  1. Rosie Hartmann is the photographer of all these holiday light photos.
  2. I would have used my iPhone photos – her photos just look better! :  )

Fellow Pixologie gal Rosie and I hit the road on Wednesday night with my thirteen year old daughter Hannah to see the best holiday lights of Racine. And did we see some great light shows and displays!

Here’s a photo from the Jamestown Lights – one local couple who put on this show every year – and the holiday music they had on their “radio station” was fun. And, they have a view across a pond which makes it even more beautiful to watch.

10392434_757201394327270_6438302903027805729_n-2Here it comes the mistake I made. We had such a fun time, and I always try to take a photo with me or Rosie and my daughter when we go out together. And I forgot.

Then, two hours later, I made my husband get in the car with my eight years old son Alex, and we went to see it again! The photo of dad and son enjoying the light show? Doesn’t exist, because I forgot.

The moral of the story?

  1. The photos of the lights will never actually capture the full experience of seeing them in person.
  2. The best parts of the night were time spent with Rosie, Hannah, my husband and Alex. Unless I write the stories down from the evening, I will not remember them.
  3. Don’t forget to even take just one photo with your family when you are out doing something fun and taking photos of holiday lights!

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Racine County Zoo Light Displays were beautiful and several blocks long – no photo of my daughter who loved all of it!

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Jellystone Campground Christmas Celebration Light Show – over 15 million lights!!! We were blown away by all the magical things they did with lights. The photo above is just a snippet of an amazing half hour car tour through the grounds. Photo of my daughter, Rosie or I – who oohed and aahed the whole way through? Doesn’t exist!

Too often, as we help people sort through their photos, we see way too many pictures of scenery and too few of the family in the scenery. Our clients aren’t saving the majority of their scenery photographs. They want the photos of the people they were with.

So – I am thinking, okay, this weekend, we’ll get back in the car and I’ll get that photo of Hannah or Alex going to see the lights. (Yes, I know, it probably won’t even be a great one, in the dark with a flash, but I’ll have a photo of this new family tradition we started!)

Let the Holidays Begin, Tell Some Stories!

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Wow, it is the week of Thanksgiving, here we go!

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The photo up above is funny and wouldn’t we love to know the story behind that turkey! Not your typical November photo.

Goodness, of all the photos we have helped people sort, it seems like the most consistent piles of photos we find – are those taken during the holidays. Year after year, we can see children and their parents grow older – at Thanksgiving with the turkey;during December with Santa photos, at Christmas opening gifts and during New Year’s celebrations!

We have something special to think about related to stories, family and blessings.

Last week, we heard about a man who was blind and who would tell his family when they traveled to take lots of pictures. When asked why this was so important to him, he replied, “I may not be able to see the photos, but when you all look at the photos and talk about what you did – I love hearing the stories you tell about what happened on your trip.”

Photos do matter, they tell stories that we might not otherwise remember.

During the holidays is the best time to haul out some old photos and albums or family videos and reminisce about things that have been long forgotten!

WSO Athlete Surprised to See Himself in a Slideshow

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Recently, we had a booth at the Wisconsin Senior Olympics – Annual Senior Celebration and Wellness Fair. What fun to talk to athletes who, in some cases, were twice as old as me, but still running marathons!

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As a board member and donor to the WSO, I love their mission of helping seniors keep active in a social atmosphere with some competition! See below for a quick slideshow of photos I put together for them – memories and moments from an organization that is over 35 years old!

While we were at the Fair, a couple stopped by our table and watched the video for a bit. And then, the gentleman said, “Hey that’s me!” He was wearing his medals in the photo. We had fun talking with him about what the Senior Olympics has meant to him.

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And it was great to see that he was touched by seeing a photo of himself.

What photo do you have that would delight someone to see the memory again?

Four Things You Should Do With Your Antique Photos

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What’s the oldest photo or album you have?

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One of our clients gave us a truly historic antique book filled with heritage portraits to scan. He knew that all of the photos were of his mother’s family . . . and he knew the names of a couple of the people in the book.

Just look at how beautiful and fragile this album is.  We gingerly opened it and used our Flip Pal scanner to gently scan the photos. The album was made to slide the portraits into slots and we couldn’t remove them due to the risk of tearing the pages.

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Here’s four things you should do with your antique photos as soon as you can!

  1. Gather all of them into one place for safe storage
  2. Sit down with your family’s historian or oldest living relative and start identifying who is in the old photos. Use a post it on the back of the photo temporarily. Enjoy the reminiscing.
  3. Scan your photos with a flatbed scanner, and the backs of the photos if there is identifying names and dates.
  4. Tag the photos digitally with the name of the relative or use other photo organizing software to document the story behind the portrait.

Save the photos, portraits and save the stories!

My mom had a photo of her Uncle Barnny – and he was quite the character. I still have the photos and the stories of how he set their house on fire with his moonshine operation in the basement. Maybe I’ll write about that in another blog!

Let us know if you need any help with preserving the old family portraits, albums and photos – we’d be glad to teach you how, do it with you or do it for you!

www.pixologieinc.com

414-731-1881

Fun with the Videos Teenagers Make! (Also: Holiday Gift Idea #7)

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This video made us smile a LOT and laugh – the boys were so charming in making a music video in Spanish and funny with their antics. Do you know any kids who made videos with camcorders back in the day (not so very long ago?) Of course, today anyone can make and share a video.

But what about ten, fifteen, twenty years ago and more? There are millions and millions of fun family moments caught and trapped on film and videotape.

These clips are off a MiniDV tape we converted to a digital file for one of our clients who graciously agreed to let us share the video with our followers. She has brought us over 40 of her family VHS, MiniDV, and 8mm tapes to convert to digital files so she can view them, edit them and share the memories. They have just loved reliving those memories that really were long ago and forgotten.

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So . . . this is Holiday Gift Idea #7 – (Don’t worry, I am going out of order, if you want a full list of our gift ideas at Pixologie, just email us at contact@pixologieinc.com! : )  Here’s how movie conversions can be a great gift idea:

  1. Convert a few movies to DVDs; share as Christmas gifts to watch on the big television or computer
  2. Convert some of your VHS tapes to digital files that you can edit, clip and pull together a movie of family memories to share at your holiday gift gatherings.
  3. Purchase gift certificates from Pixologie to give to family members who you know have movies they need to get digitized.

Videos are so much more powerful than photos – we can see our family and friends (some of whom may not even be with us anymore) living, having fun, talking and making memories. Let us know how we can help!

Find us at http://www.pixologieinc.com or call 414-731-1881

When Did You Last Look at Your Photos from 2013?

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Remember 2013? Hmm. . . if someone asked me straight out what was great about last year, I truly don’t know what I would say. Life is so busy, I can’t remember last week much less over a year ago.

This is a shame, because my family has amazingly fun memories to share and celebrate together. So I tried out something new – making a digital photo album with just my 2013 photos in it. See the photo above.

I’m holding the photobook open to our 2013 Hartmann Family Reunion pictures. Look at Alex holding that basketball – he’d won it in our famous brown bag auction and wasn’t going to let anyone take it away from him!

Check out a few more pages . . . I really have to say, my eyes tear up when I think about all the blessings my family has had. Below are photos from New Year’s Eve at my dear friend Tammy’s house – was so much fun. My husband was a nurse at the time and had to work the night shift – so my kids and I had an absolute blast with Tammy, friends, neighbors and a whole houseful of kids.

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Oh my goodness, 2013 was the year we drove to Yellowstone National Park – oh the sites we saw. My book has four pages and 24 photos that capture the best of the best moments from that trip. And my kids had such an adventure. We highly recommend Yellowstone for your next summer vacation!

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Then there’s the holidays. . . I have about four pages of holiday photos, just enough to capture the essence of celebrating Christmas with the family. This is the first page of December memories with me and the kids making Christmas cookies and photos of snow – and our crazy dog Tillie jumping to catch snow flung at her!

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I love that my family has a physical book to look through and see how much fun and adventure we have together.

How would you feel showing a book like this to show your children, family and friends with your best moments of 2013?

You can experience it yourself – with the Pixologie Digital Family Photo Album with DVD. After showing this concept to people, overwhelmingly, the consensus was that we should continue making these books for others who want to celebrate and share the best stories of their lives!

Click here to learn more – http://www.pixologieinc.com.

To order a Digital Family Photo Album with DVD  – http://www.shop.pixologieinc.com

Who Knew We Could Scan 60,000 Photos in 10 Days!

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Graphic for Blog To celebrate International Save Your Photos Day 2014, Pixologie committed to an audacious goal of scanning 100,000 photos in the run-up to Saturday, September 27. Here’s what we actually achieved:

  • 61,000 photos scanned with our Kodak Picture Saver high speed scanners and preserved for over twenty individuals and families
  • Another 50,000 approximately on our docket to be scanned throughout October for an additional six families

Lessons Learned

With our Save Your Photos Day goal and event, our clients felt a call to action. Most of our clients want to get their photos organized, but many needed that extra motivation to start. With the extra attention to saving photos, people understood that flooding, tornados, hard drive crashes, etc. are a real threat to their family memories. The devastation of losing photos in a disaster or to time was more apparent because of this special day.

However, we found that our clients had been waiting for the day to be organized before bringing their photos in for scanning services. Our goal was impacted by the fact that we had to physically remove most of the photos from the albums brought in. We did not just want numbers, we wanted our clients to have a usable digital archive of their photos.

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Here’s a story of a great couple whom we’ve known for over three years and who have not been ready to get their photos out of a chaotic situation in their closet.

Over 50 Years of Memories Too Overwhelming to Even Look At

Stephen and Mary had fifty-five diverse photo albums, all different sizes, types and levels of deterioration along with hundreds of photo envelopes – overloading the shelves in their bedroom closet and never brought out to be shared.  Even though most of the photos were in albums, the memories spanned over 50 years of marriage and were so overwhelming that the escapades of their eight children growing up, celebrations, travel around the world, and their annual mission work were hidden away. We picked up their photo album collection, took out all the photos from the albums and scanned the pictures.

After the scanning process, we tagged their digital files with relevant keywords so they could search their photos for events and important topics. We will return their photos in elegant Legacy Boxes along with DVDs of their photos.

Our next steps are to help them create digital photo books by picking out the best of their photos on topics such as their mission work with an orphanage in Honduras which spans many years and their family “yearbook” featuring and celebrating their traditions and faith.

Because of Save Your Photos Day and the relationship we had developed with them over the years, Stephen and Mary have taken their photos out of their closet and are bringing their memories and stories back into life to be celebrated and shared.

Consider Scanning a First Step to Getting Your Photos Organized

As mentioned before, we found that many of our SYPD clients were waiting until they organized their photos to bring them in for scanning. Unfortunately, that day doesn’t usually come when you have time to organize your photos, and instead, you are rushing around creating further photo chaos trying to find needed pictures for a special event.

Some Ways We Can Help

  1. Bring your albums and boxes of photos to Pixologie for Open Studio Time. We’ll get you started on preparing your photos for scanning.
  2. Have a lot of photos to scan? Consider renting our Kodak PS50 to scan your photos at home. It comes with a laptop, so scanning is super easy and super fast at up to 50 photos per minute.
  3. Still too overwhelmed? Give us a call. We’d be happy to talk with you and help you make a plan to get your photos out of chaos and back into life to be celebrated and shared!

In the end, we were humbled that our clients embraced our goal for Save Your Photos Day and feel so blessed to be a part of making sure their stories were recovered, shared and preserved!

Please feel free to contact us with any questions!

Email: mollieandann@pixologieinc.com

Telephone: 414-690-0791

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About the Save Your Photos Alliance  Pixologie is a member of the Save Your Photos Alliance, a group committed to being the world’s premier organization for the SAFEGUARDING, RECOVERING, RESTORING, and REUNITING of photos and treasured memorabilia before and after disasters occur.

Learn more about the Alliance at: www.saveyourphotos.org

Learn more about the National Disaster Photo Rescue organization: http://nationaldisasterphotorescue.org/

Put Your Family On Expo This Weekend!

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At Pixologie, we love celebrating life, family, fun and much more! We do this by helping people reconnect with their photos, get them organized, printed, shared and much more. Making memories is so much fun (figuring out what to do with the photos is what we offer to you!)

Every time you take a child’s photo or have a family portrait done, you are featuring your child, your family and your life for a moment. That moment is captured and on exposition for a split second in time! These moments, so very often, are tucked away in digital memory (smartphone, tablet, camera card, computer, etc.)

We saw a staggering statistic on Yahoo at the beginning of the year . . . nearly one trillion photos will be taken this year. Consider this:

  • The vast majority of those photos will never be printed
  • Many will be lost through digital crashes, smartphone disasters (stolen, left behind and never found, traded in without a back-up of photos saved)
  • Most people are so overwhelmed with their photos, they have no clue where to start.

Here’s where we come in. . . 

Pixologie Challenge & Simple Solution for this weekend – Put Your Family On Expo!

  1. Come to the Just Add Kids Expo this weekend in Racine – see details above – Visit our Pixologie Photo Zone and get a crazy fun family portrait together by a professional photographer (available for digital download at no charge) 
  2. Don’t live in the area? Send us your craziest family photo to contact@pixologieinc.com) and we’ll post it for you on Facebook!
  3. From all the family photos, we will draw a name to win a digital photo album featuring your child with a value of $100!

For your simple solution to photo organizing dilemmas – we’ll be handing out our QuickPix Guide to Photo Organization – and give you ideas and tips on how to get started, one step at a time! For those who can’t make it – we’ll send it to you!

Happy memory making and we’ll see your family on EXPO! : )