Organizing Photos: Respect Scarcity
February 2, 2010
In an earlier post about how to organize photos, I talked about respecting age.
The older the photograph, the harder you should try to find another home for it if you don’t want to keep it yourself. Part of the reason why you should respect age is because age goes hand in hand with scarcity.
What makes a photo scarce?
In addition to age, there are other factors that create scarcity.
Here’s a list off the top of my head, please add more via the comments section:
- Entire collections destroyed due to disaster (loss of home, fire, flood, etc.)
- Family photographers are notoriously under-documented in family photo albums.
- How many photos do you have of yourself at work? I’ve noticed that very few people have photos of themselves at work, and even fewer take photographs of their work places.
- Family separations or bad feelings can cause restricted access to photos, or in the worst case scenario photos of certain individuals can be destroyed in anger.
- People who die young.*
*OK. I had to segregate this next part from my breezy list. February 1st is the anniversary of the death of my nephew William Evan Manley. Originally I was going to write about Evan, and my husband’s Uncle Joe… but I found I just couldn’t do it. Let’s acknowledge the reality of this kind of loss (I’m far far far from alone, I know) and cherish the photos we have. They are precious beyond measure.
And if you are struggling with grief, I highly recommend a book called How To Go On Living When Someone Else Dies, by Therese Rando. Buy from Amazon
