This post has been literal months in the making. One of the greatest struggles with this day and age is the lack of tangible photos we have. I saw online somewhere that this is the most photographed generation with the least amount of physical prints to show for. Think about how crazy that is. There are thousands of photos floating around in the cloud, just chillin'. I'm on a mission to change that. Starting with my own clients and my own family. (If you're new around here, all my clients walk away from their session with some form of tangible print ordered!) 

     Printing photos is an extremely daunting task. Especially when dealing with the volume of photos taken. Do you start from the beginning, do you start now, do you start now and work backwards? So many ways to do it that it is overwhelming and honestly doesn't get done. Another problem that we all face is how you want your photos printed. Loose leaf? Photo book? Album? Framed? etc. (And if you're like me, the ever challenging struggle of wanting cohesion!) There are SO MANY OPTIONS. Once again that leads to feeling overwhelmed and then nothing gets done.  

     So after stewing on what I wanted to do, I have finally come to my own happy conclusion involving three methods: 4x6's in photo albums, photo books and chatbooks. This system I've set up may not work for everyone, and it's up to you to find your grove and what is going to work for your family, but for me, I am pretty happy with the outcome. 

4X6 Prints in a Photo Album

This takes me back to looking at my own pictures from growing up in photo albums very similar to this one. As much as I love photo books and designing them and the cohesion that follows, they lack in one thing: time. In all honesty, I don't have time to make photo books. Especially given the number of photos I take. These pictures are just from my camera. I decided to just start with this year and work my way backwards. My first batch of printing is from January 1st to mid April 2019. From those handful of months I have roughly 530 photos. Not to mention the thousands of photos I had to cull in order to get the "print worthy" shots. For the printing, I used Persnickety Prints. They use darkroom techniques to make these babies archival quality. I also opted for the white border around each image (that they do for free) to me, it made it feel more professional and substantial. I ordered my photo album off of amazon. I was aiming for the one that most resembled the three packs you could buy at Costco back in the day. They are what my mom used and have held up wonderfully over the years. 

Chatbooks

I've talked about my love of Chatbooks before, in fact, you can use this code and get a free book on me. But what I love to use Chatbooks for is printing all of our cell phone pictures from my phone as well as Danny's. We can sync our accounts to contribute to the same series, (in this case, The Robbins Nest) and then I don't worry about those pictures never seeing the light of day. I get the 6x6 option and they are small enough that they hide the imperfections and quality of cell phone pictures, but are big enough to view and handle. We are nearing our 100th volume over the span of 4 years. This investment has been one of my greater accomplishments to see all my pictures laid out in front of me. 

Photo Books

I loooove photo books. They feel so sturdy and safe and secure. The company that I use to print my books through is called, Blurb. I love them. You can upload your own design or create one with their templates. After coming to the reality that photo books are not going to hold every photo I own, I was ok with that. They instead are used for my kids' baby books, Picture of the Day, and special photoshoots like maternity pictures, family pictures and my births. The best time to order your book from Blurb is during their Black Friday sale. What I usually do is design my books and save them in my account until the sale and then I buy them! With the amount that I create, this helps soften the price tag. 

    And there you have it. This is how I organize and print my pictures. It's so important to have it done and in a way that the kids and my family can enjoy. Just since putting the first album together Jones and I have looked through it multiple times. However you decide will work best for your family is the best way to do it. All that maters is that you print your pictures, get them off of your hard drive and into your hands where you can view them whenever you want. Print your legacy for your kids.