Fantastic Vacation Photos? Don’t bet on your phone or Facebook being the place to store those memories!

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Capturing City Center at Dusk in Las Vegas

Viva Las Vegas! I just finished an amazing trip out to Nevada’s hottest spot (literally!) where the day offers beautiful scenic day trips and the nightlife is loud, eye-popping and colorful. Truly a great girls trip to celebrate one turning 40, we took nearly 500 photos!

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Some of our best moments . . .
  • Checking out the Fremont Street Experience
  • Trekking around Charleston Mountain
  • Conquering the Strip
  • Traveling through the Valley of Fire
  • Sweating it out at Hoover Dam

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As a professional photo organizer, I loved all the opportunities to take pictures of these spots with my traditional digital camera. My girlfriends, by comparison, spent some of their photographic time composing selfies with their smartphones.
 
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Such an interesting contrast of how we wanted to capture our vacation. And I learned a lot about how my friends manage their photos.  Here’s what I found fascinating as I know many other people have similar habits:
  • Smartphones are their photo home. One of my friends actually pulled up a photo on her phone from her last Vegas trip which was several years ago.
  • Facebook is another home of their photos. My other friend was hoping I could upload my photos so they posted on her timeline. As hard as I tried to get my album up so that it would be on her timeline, I couldn’t figure it out. In order to make it work, she took screen shots of my Facebook album to make her own album to post.
  • Each of them have an iPhone with a PhotoStream to make the sharing process much easier – but they (as many do) found it confusing to access and navigate.
 
I know that we are bombarded with photo apps and social media opportunities to share our fun memories. And in the short term, this is great. We loved for our friends and family to track what we experienced on our trip.
 
For the long term, I wouldn’t want to bet on smartphones and social media to be the place where I go to find my photos and enjoy the memories.
 
Here’s my few suggestions on how to manage your photos once so that the sharing, celebrating and remembering is accomplished all at once!
 
  1. Take your wonderful photos (all of them – both on smartphone and camera) Delete the ones you don’t want.
  2. Download the photos to your computer – save in a consistent place (Mac – iPhoto; PC – Windows Explorer)
  3. Review again and delete unneeded photos
  4. Then share to your social media, order prints, etc. and enjoy.
I would love to help you with your photo questions. Feel free to email me at mollieb@pixologieinc.com and let’s get your memories in a better place!
 
In the meantime, enjoy this final selfie of the three of us – it’s my favorite from the whole trip!
 

I love this selfie of all us three gals!

Say No To Bad Selfies! : )

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Rachel's Selfie

 

Here’s a beautiful selfie of Co-Founder Ann Matuszak’s daughter – who happens to also love photos! (However, this gem of a selfie was found among many, many other goofy selfies!)

We love, love photos at Pixologie! 

So, my friend, Paula at Just Add Kids, was telling me about how her kids use her smartphone to take many “selfies.” When she mentioned that, I groaned. (Okay, we don’t love all photos.) Her biggest problem (besides her kids just using the phone) was something like, “Well, how can I delete them?” Admittedly, some of her kids’ “selfies” were adorable, but most of the selfies, in my humble opinion, just needed to be trashed.

I am going to make a categorical statement in my life, “Say No To Selfies.” (hashtag is #saynotobadselfies). After talking with Paula and her assistant, Theresa, we came to the following conclusions:

  • Selfies clutter our phones.
  • Selfies, while fun in the moment,tend to desensitize children and teenagers and really seem, at a deeper level, a form of self-disrespect. Consider the headline in a recent New York Times article, “With Some Selfies, the Uglier the Better.” See the link below as it provides an interesting perspective on selfies. I’m not sure how I feel about it all.
  • They can take away the innocence of a teenager – first, it’s a goofy face; next – a provocative look; then – a daring cleavage shot; and in too many instances – a bikini selfie and worse

Having said all of that, there are some “selfies” that are amazingly awesome. So, after further reflection, I can’t say no to them all, just the bad ones. Selfies can catch a moment in a special, ethereal, way – such as at a wedding – or at the Academy Awards like Ellen did with the most tweeted ever photo! 

UPCOMING CLASS

Related to the selfie dilemma, Pixologie and Just Add Kids is offering this class to anyone with too many photos on their phone.

Get Your Photos Off Your Phone!

Pixologie Studio at The Gathering in Oak Creek

8825 South Howell Avenue, Suite 102

Register at: http://www.facebook.com/pixologie

 

Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/fashion/selfies-the-uglier-the-better-technology.html?_r=0

Check Out: Just Add Kids – http://www.justaddkidsonline.net