Family photos are precious and hold so many memories of the people, places, and events in your life. It’s important to capture your family’s key moments. But, as the years go by and you take more photos, it can be hard to find those you want to look back at and share. Here are some tips to help you to capture your family’s key moments and keepsakes, and for organising your family photos.
Capture your family’s key moments
If you take these shots, then you’ll have a great collection of family photos to choose from, share, and display:
- Pregnancy – your changing body is amazing, so take some photos as your bump grows. My husband took monthly photos of me front and side on for both my pregnancies. I love looking back at them, especially with my sons.
- Birth – if you can, as soon as possible after the birth, get someone to take a photo of the baby by themselves, and with you/you and your partner/and any friends or family members present at the birth.
- Pre-school – take photos of your kids at crèche, kindy, or preschool.
- School – starting school is a key moment, as is wearing a school uniform for the first time. It’s a good idea to get class photos each year for each child too.
- Sports and hobbies – take photos of your kids doing the things they love.
- On their own and together – if you have more than one child, take regular photos of them on their own, as well as together. School photos of siblings are a great memory too.
- Family – take photos of the whole family as often as you can and at least once a year. Your kids will grow up quickly and it’s always nice to look at how tall they were at certain ages and how you all looked ‘back then’.
It’s easy to miss this one, as one of you will probably be taking photos of the rest of the family. Make sure you get these shots by asking someone to take this photo when you’re all out together, or at home with visitors. You can also get a family photo taken when your school takes school photos – ask your school about this.
- Extended family and friends – you can do the same thing with the grandparents, aunties and uncles, friends, and so on. Capture these moments on camera regularly, when everyone is together.
- Holidays – when you’re on holiday, take photos of your kids by themselves, with you, with your partner, and get that family shot too!
- Birthdays, Christmas, and special events – photos of each child on their Birthday, at Christmas and at any special events, with you and/or their friends and other family members, are also a great memory.
- Couple shots – don’t forget to ask someone to take a regular photo of you and your partner too.
- Videos – it’s easy to capture special moments on video using your smartphone or tablet, so try to get short videos of the key moments for your family too.
Set up a keepsake box
As well as photos, it’s worth creating a special keepsake box for each child. Discuss this with your child and ask them what they’d like to keep. Some ideas for things to include are:
- some baby clothing
- a favourite toy
- artwork and writing samples
- some school books from each year
- school reports
- school photos and class photos
- certificates and awards
- any other keepsakes.
Organising your family photos
Most of us store our photos on our computers, devices, or in the cloud these days. This gives us the opportunity to file or tag our photos carefully, so we can easily refer back to them.
An easy way to file or tag your photos is by the year and month. From there, you can select your favourite photos and create a yearly album. This makes it easy to find the best photos of your family.
You can also set up folders that include your favourite photos over the years or use software to tag your photos into these types of categories.
- Child’s name (Child number 1) – photos of them only
- Child’s name (child number 2, and so on) – photos of them only
- Children together
- Immediate family photos – those precious shots of all of you
- Other/extended family photos
- Friends
- You and the kids
- Your partner and the kids
- You and your partner
- Holidays
By organising your family photos, you’ll easily be able to choose the best shots to share or display. Don’t forget to download photos regularly from all your devices into a central storage place or folder and to have a back-up system!
Useful links
- Taking good photographs of your children http://www.kiwifamilies.co.nz/articles/taking-good-photographs-children/
- Tips for getting good photos of your kids http://www.kiwifamilies.co.nz/articles/tips-getting-good-photos-kids/
- Great photo apps for the whole family http://www.kiwifamilies.co.nz/2012/12/great-photo-apps-for-the-whole-family/
