Jody Al-Saigh
Picture Perfect Organizing
August 2, 2021
How to Prepare for Your First Visit with a Professional Photo Organizer
For people who struggle with organizing their photos, hiring a professional photo organizer can be a great resource. A photo organizer can provide valuable tips for organizing photos and can give hands on guidance to achieve your final results. But there’s a few things to keep in mind that can save you time and money.
1) Think about your goals for the professional photo organizer.
A common goal is to preserve precious memories. Perhaps you were given photos by a family member or found historic photos after the passing of a loved one. Maybe you’ve run out of room and your printed photos are cluttering your space. Or you want to be sure not to lose precious digital photos, but you don’t know how to back them up.
Another goal could be to share the photos with others. What is the point of taking all these photos if they never leave your phone? Maybe you want to make a scrapbook as a gift. Or share photos online with former classmates and friends. Perhaps you want to frame some beautiful vacation images.
Many people are also interested in downsizing and digitizing. Can you take all those albums with you? Will you have space for all of the framed photos you used to hang? Will your digital memories be organized after you’re gone?
When you’re getting ready to move, photos are a key piece to consider, but often get put aside when trying to think about moving furniture and other items. Getting printed photos scanned is a great way to take all of your photos with you, even if space in your new home is limited.
2) Prepare to get started.
A lot of people get daunted or overwhelmed by the process of organizing photos. They just don’t know how to get started.
Setting an appointment is a great first step!
Sometimes people hire a professional photo organizer just to have a regular appointment to keep. If they are paying someone by the hour, they know they don’t want to waste their money and time. An organizer will work side by side and becomes an extra set of hands in the organizing process.
For many people, photos trigger a lot of emotion. Organizing photos can get derailed when the memories cause pain or sadness or even if they just cause the client to get sidetracked reminiscing about happy times. Photo organizers can offer guidance and steer you back on course when a project hits a roadblock.
Photo organizing is one of those tasks that, for many, can fall by the wayside in our busy lives. But after a while the task gets too big to manage because you’ve put it off for so long.
Often the bigger a project gets, the more money you end up throwing at it in order to quickly solve the problem. professional photo organizers can make sure that you’re shopping and spending appropriately – finding the best backup solution for your hard drive, determining how much cloud storage you should pay for, finding cost effective but photo-safe methods of storing prints and memorabilia items.
3) Get going on your project!
You’ve got a goal for your photos and your first appointment with a photo organizer is booked.
Prepare for your visit to maximize your savings.
For print photos, search and collect from every place photos are stored in your home and get them into one spot. This saves time for when the organizer arrives – you don’t need to hire someone by the hour to help you rummage through your drawers and closets.
When everything is brought together, set up a good area to work. You should have a large flat surface such as a dining room table or a bed in a guest room. If you have the space, find an area for photo sorting that doesn’t have to be put awaybetween appointments.
It’s always good to break up the organizing process into small and manageable chunks – you can’t expect to organize all your photos in one single session with an organizer. So, it’s great if all of the sorted piles can stay put if you have the space to leave them out.
If you’re trying to organize digital items, similar rules apply. Everyone these days has multiple devices that take and store photos. Gather all of your phones, tablets, camera memory cards, old hard drives and laptops, thumb drives and CDs together to show your organizer. Make sure you have all of the necessary cords to charge and plug in those devices so your organizer can view everything contained on each device. Your photo organizer will want to see the total volume of your photo collection to determine the scope of your project.
Advancements in technology have made digital storage much easier to achieve, even for those who aren’t technologically savvy. Whether you can manage it yourself, or if you need a little help, you will definitely want to use technology to your advantage to preserve your collections in a digital format.
Now you’re off to the races! You and your photo organizer can work efficiently and with less stress because you’ve prepared in advance. Best of luck with your photo organizing!
For more information, contact Jody Al-Saigh
