Project 52 To Print

Happy Monday y’all! If some of you follow along on my FB page at all, you may have seen some personal pictures of my son swimming I put up two weeks ago with a hint of a little project I wanted to start this year in the description. The inspiration to this project was when I was cleaning out my hard drive on my Macbook Pro and transferring files to my external hard drive to <hopefully> store safely for many years to come. As I got to the folder entitled, “Hart Family Photos – 2014 and 2015,” I became hesitant. I didn’t want to transfer them to an external hard drive. I knew if I transferred them it meant that maybe I wouldn’t ever look at them again. At least not for several months or even years. At that time I decided to keep my photos on my hard drive with a goal to go through and cull all the unneeded images and make a book of the last few years I haven’t printed. What an overwhelming task that will be, but I need to do it, not just for me, but for our family. If it wasn’t clear enough, my feelings were affirmed yesterday when I went to do an engagement shoot for a future bride and I met her over at her grandma’s house. Her “Nan” was super cute and showed me all these pictures of her children and grandchildren as I waited for my future bride and groom to change outfits for their next venue location. At one point she half apologized for all the pictures she had, but I told her that I thought that was wonderful. How many of us can whip out pictures all over the house to share with visitors? To her, her family was her everything and will be her legacy, and shouldn’t that be for all of us? When we leave this earth don’t we want our memory to shine on to our family and become a part of their history? This is SUPER important to me. I want my children to share with their children the memories and the love they shared with us growing up. I want my grandchildren to tell their grandchildren about where it all got started. To me it’s not about making us feel important, but making sure the love our family shared is a part of the history of our family.  And I want there to be evidence of it. Pictures that will recall great memories and bring tears of joy. And how many people of our generation or younger will be able to pull out pictures to share with guests and loved ones to share? Not too many. I think this is incredibly sad, so I decided to challenge myself with a little project I call “Project 52 To Print.”

Every week I take pictures, whether on my phone or camera, of my kids and our family. My goal for the next year (52 weeks) is to print at least one of those pictures. And then at the end of the year I will put a book together with all the runner’s up of that pictures I edited, but didn’t print. Sound fun? So, how am I going to do this? See my steps below and join in the fun of curating and protecting your family’s history.

How can I help you do it? Start here: 

1.) Create folder on desk top entitled “Project 52”

2.) Create subfolders “week 1,” “week 2,” and so on…

3.) Under subfolders pull your favorites and mark your one print as “To Print Week 1”

4.) Get connected to a lab. I will be using my pro lab that I use for my clients because I already have an account for, but some labs that allow you to print online and that have quality printing are Nation’s Photo Lab and Black River Imaging.

5.) Print your images right away. We are talking only a few $$ a week for 52 weeks.

6.) Frame, display, share, store and enjoy your pictures. I will be purchasing a really nice box in the future, but for right now I will pick one up at Michaels or another craft store to store one of those pictures.

Who wants to join? Comment below if you will join the Project so we can all keep each other accountable.

XO!

Stacy

Project 52 To Print – Week 1

Project 52- Week 2