Photographs capture a fleeting moment for all time. Whether candid or staged, impromptu and blurry, focused and breath-taking, photos take us back to times and places our minds may have forgotten that otherwise seem impossible to reach. Loss isn’t something many of us wish to experience, let alone re-experience. And yet, when someone we love passes away, we often seek a connection that reminds us of that person to comfort and guide us as we try to heal.
Creating a photo memory book for you or your entire family experiencing a loss and celebrating their life is a simple gift that can bring everyone together to grieve, laugh, and heal. We hope to share ideas and inspiration in this article to create your photo memory book.
Gathering Photos
When a loved one passes, most often, a family member and friends gather to help with the task of cleaning out drawers and living spaces. During this time, if you or a family member are tasked with cleaning the deceased family member’s spaces, ask or actively set aside photographs, polaroids, photo albums, boxes of slides, or negatives. At this moment, it will no doubt feel too overwhelming to go through all of them and pick favorites. Setting these items aside in a cool, dry place to sort through later is all right.
To Digitize Or Not
When the time is right, and you or your family have time to sit down and look through photos, now is the time to start picking favorites and consider whether you want to digitize the images.
In regards to negatives and slides, unless you are familiar with handling these media types, you may wish to:
- Carefully pick and choose a few negatives or slides to keep and develop
- Contact a professional to have them developed
As this can be expensive, it is best to consider keeping only the best.
As for developed photos in albums or stored in other containers, these items can be digitized easily if you or someone within the family has a printer and home PC capable of scanning the photos.
Scanning photos at home is the most cost-efficient means to digitize and store photographs so that you can later create a digital photo book for friends and family to browse. However, keep in mind this is also a very time-intensive task. In addition to scanning each photo, you should also take the time to name each photo and save them in appropriate places on a laptop, PC, CD, or thumb drive to find them easily later. Once the photos are scanned, you’ll begin sorting and choosing them.
Sorting your scanned photos as you go will save you time and effort later. Considering sorting and naming photos by:
- Year
- Life Stages
In most cases, you’ll probably realize you have many beautiful photos sorted and more than enough to pick favorites. To further help organize, create a separate folder for the images you feel are best for the photo book, name it appropriately, and move or copy those photos into that folder.
Embrace Flaws
Imperfect photos with grain or color banding, scratches, torn or bent corners, and dust—these are the things that give character to photographs and tell a tale from years past. These flaws provide the photos and the eventual book you create character and beauty, making them unique. Embrace the not-flawless photo, and don’t strive to have them edited to perfection.
Arranging
Once the photos have been chosen, it is up to you to consider how best to arrange them. You can lay it out chronologically, from baby photos to their last images, or choose by places, eras, or even “best of” collections. There is no right or wrong way to arrange these photos, as you will know what feels best for your loved one.
Publishing
The last step in creating your beautiful memory book is choosing where to publish it. If you’ve used a service for printing photo books before and are happy with them, choose them again. However, if you are unsure where to start, here are a few customer favorites:
- Shutterfly Photo Books
- Walmart Custom Photo Books
- Mixbook Photo Books
- Amazon Prints for Prime Members
- Google Photo Books for Google Photo Users
- Printique Photo Books
Don’t forget that each book that you print and gift is unique. Photo memory books can hold more than just photos. For your personal photo memory book, feel free to include travel tickets, sticky notes, letters, drawings, and other details that can enrich the pages and bring you comfort every time you look at it.
A photo memory book you create for family and yourself doesn’t have to be just photos—make something that recounts the narrative and life of your loved ones with personal memories, preserving and commemorating a unique person who was and is so loved and dearly missed.