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Julie M. Montgomery

Professor Sobocinski

ENG 1201 Section 525

15 April 2020

Picture it – Capturing the Past for Future Generations

For my research paper, I set out to answer this question, what is the best method and

technology to save and share photographs? Since most people now have smart phones with

amazing cameras, the number of photographs taken each year continues to multiply. The end

results are thousands of photographs with no organization. Most of my research discussed

creating a plan since most people have photographs in albums, on their phone, saved on hard

drives, in the cloud and on social media sites. Williams discussed creating a recipe on how

to backup photos since all photographers have experienced the loss of a prized photograph or

hard drive sometime during their career (Williams).

Back in the day, when photographers were limited by how much film they possessed,

they were more discriminating when they would push the button to take a picture. In today’s

world, a photographer can create a photo blast of pictures in seconds. Before digital

photography, time and money was spent on photo albums with plastic sleeves. Once

Creative Memories was founded by Rhonda Anderson, her products helped to preserve

photographs and provided supplies to showcase vacations, birth and life events. Now with

the digital revolution photographers have dozens of choices on how to store, display and

create gifts.

Two of the articles discussed different strategies on how to whittle down the amount

of photographs in their collections. Alexander George, in his article “How to Organize Your

Zillion Photos” proposes pulling all the photos into one place and then begin deleting using a
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device which scans your library and compares two photos that are identical for deletion

(George). When pondering the photo organization project, computer science theory of

Search Sort may help decide if the photographer should follow through with the project. A

person who is always looking for a photograph may benefit from taking the time to organize

all of their photos. However, someone who rarely searches for a photograph may not benefit

from the time needed to set up a good organization process (Christian and Griffiths).

One key element in starting the project is saving all of the photographs onto one

computer. Severson refers to this as the Rule of One and from this location all back -ups will

be created (Severson). The purpose of saving all photographs in one location is at any time

an electronic device could be damaged by water or a smart phone could be lost or stolen. By

routinely saving photos to one location, then the process of deletion and organization can

begin.

Once all of the photographs are in one place, organized and labeled, what choices are

available for a back-up location. Options include external hard drives, back-up software,

online service, flash drives, CD’s and the list goes on (Williams). Comparing costs and how

much storage is provided is a big consideration. For example, Amazon Prime members

receive unlimited storage; however they are paying a yearly fee for being Prime members.

Google Photos is free and will store and unlimited amount of compressed photos. To have

the photos saved at full resolution, a fee is charged monthly. It is important to compare sites

and prices to determine the best fit.

Through the research, I have a good idea of the process to begin organizing mountains

of photographs. I will look for data for the first paragraph to help express pathos for this

topic. I need to research the back-up sites to save more than photographs and I need to dig

deeper into other devices to save photographs and outline their pros and cons.
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Works Cited

Carrington, David. “How Many Photos Will Be Taken in 2020?” Life In Focus, 10 Jan. 2020,

focus.mylio.com/tech-today/how-many-photos-will-be-taken-in-2020. Accessed 16 Apr.

2020.

Chen, Brian. “The Zen of Organizing Your Smartphone Photos.” The New York Times, 2 June

2016.

Christian, Brian, and Tom Griffiths. Algorithms to Live by : The Computer Science of Human

Decisions. New York, Picador, 2017.

George, Alexander. “How to Organize Your Zillion Photos.” Popular Mechanics, Mar. 2018, p.

20.

Severson, Sarah. “Archiving Digital Photographs.” The Complete Guide to Personal Digital

Archiving, by ALA Edition, edited by Brianna Marshall, American Library Association,

2018, pp. 3–18.

Williams, Sarah Bay. The Digital Shoebox : How to Organize, Find, and Share Your Photos.

Berkeley, Ca, Peachpit Press, 2010.