Reaching the end of another month and preparing for the next.  September brings lots of activity in my world since it is Save Your Photos Month in my professional world.  Working with folks all over the world to make sense of the boxes of photos and memories they have from their lives and those of generations before them, allows clarity to wash over them and feel a sense of accomplishment and relief.  Inheriting stuff from family can be hard – the stories attached to that stuff are almost never shared and so the box becomes a nuisance, a burden, and unfortunately junk to be tossed in the garbage.  And then something happens that we cannot rewind and get it back.  I have witnessed too many people in my circle of friends lately deal with this.  And it hurts.  We need to revive the art of oral history sharing.  We need to cherish the family line we have come up through.  It is a part of us, and if we took the time to hear it, we might start to understand why we are like we are in our actions and mannerisms.
Recently I have been thinking about all the noise that fills our world daily, much of it will become history written in a book. People will read it, remember it, reference it – but how much of it actually touched us so personally that we can say we lived it?  The thing is every day we are making our history.  We ARE living our lives in a manner that will mold and shape what happens to us in the days ahead, and much of that is woven in the fabric of our family lineage.  Why do you trim the ham before baking it?  According to the story, because that is what mom, grandma, great-grandma did.  And then the stories are shared and you find out great-grandma had a little pan.  So she cut off the ends to fit in the pan.  Silly traditions, but if we don’t ask, we don’t learn.
Think about the last time you sat down with an elder in your family and asked them questions about their childhood.  Did they have similar experiences to what you have?  Obviously there was not the technology and gadgets there are today, but what was new and innovative in their day?  I remember getting our first microwave. It was HUGE.  But it worked like the ones today. Have they improved on it, absolutely, but it is still something that was a story to talk about.  Cameras is another thing that has changed and how we took photos.  In the past, the camera was brought out for special occasions.  Makes me wonder what was happening on those other days of the year.  Were they not important enough or was it because to develop and print film cost money and that was not an expense many families were willing to dole out?  I try to take photos more often so I can remember the little things.  Grandkids smelling flowers for the first time, eating a lemon, or splashing in puddles.  These are stories that can be shared over generations – we all have birthdays and parties for holidays which are fun to see and compare year to year, but that should not be the only time to capture images on film.
When my papa (grandpa on mom’s side) was still alive, I was just getting into saving my memories from the past.  I took a tape recorder on a visit to him and basically asked him to share all the stories he could that I remembered from my childhood. (As I was growing up I remembered only bits and pieces of them).  He told the stories and I listened; it brought back so many happy images of growing up and spending time with he and grandma.  I am sure some of the info was embellished or maybe even complete fiction, but it didn’t matter – that was the story from my papa.  I don’t know that my kids have those memories from our parents.  And unfortunately, they only have one grandparent left to share that.  I am trying to be better at this and share things now with my grandkids – through word and image.  Passing on the wisdom from the elders of the family is so important.  It shapes who we are, it is infused in our life and we may not even know why.  My challenge to you during September is to revive that long lost tradition of passing on oral history.  It can be accompanied by photos – haven’t we all heard “a photo is worth a thousand words”; so write those words or share them with others so that they have the information and can then pass it on.  Let’s bring back the dinner table discussions – real “meat and potatoes” kind of talk about traditions, events in family history, the impact our ancestors had on our upbringing and maybe even some of that global history.  Who knows, maybe you do have some famous stories in your lineage.  But if you don’t ask, don’t share, and don’t document it – it will be lost.
My challenge for you as we near the “end of summer” with Labor Day weekend is to gather with family and share some stories, memories, traditions, etc.  Teach the younger generation about the tenacity it requires to continue leaving a legacy for future generations.  And if you need help doing something with the information once you have it, reach out to myself or a colleague who do this for a living – www.thephotomanagers.com is a great place to start.  There are members globally waiting to make your life story a true legacy. 
Jodi Bondy
Hoosier Photo Organizer

I try to provide education to my friends and family without being pushy.  Everyone has reasons for accepting an offer or not.  Yesterday was one of those days for a friend.
We have known each other for several years and there have been a few conversations about what I do as a photo organizer.  We have never moved our relationship into that of client and service provider.

Over the weekend, her daughter somehow changed her "swipe" pattern on her phone which left her unable to unlock it.  Similar to mine, I have a fingerprint option set up, but if you try swiping too many times or have to restart it - the swipe to enter your pin is required.  So here she is with a phone that she cannot open.  All her apps, her contacts, her notes and her PHOTOS.  Every one of them.  

She tells me that she has a huge SD card in the phone, but for some reason, none of the photos were being saved there.  And her phone was not set up to upload photos to an online platform - dropbox, google photos, icloud, etc.  Nothing.  So what can she do.  They tried to get into the phone - called and talked to several local experts (phone company, tech support, etc) and nothing was working.  She had to reset to factory.  Oh no, that means everything she had will now be lost, right? Probably.  

Now I understand apps and things can be reinstalled - such a pain (and the reason I have a screenshot printed out of my phone so I know what all I had on it).  But her photos, is there any hope we will be able to recover, find, calm her fears that we can get them back.  We are in the works of figuring that out.  But it was a super hard lesson for her to learn.
You have to think about the disaster that is going to happen some day.  Not IF, but WHEN!

So we talked a little bit more about the cloud service I use through FOREVER.  It is private, permanent, safe, secure. I own it.  No one can access my photos or documents unless I give them permission.  I have my daughter set up as my account manager so if something happens to me, she still has access to all the family photos.  I have my phone set to automatically upload photos when I take them. I go in and move the photos I get in texts from my family and friends to my phone folder temporarily, and then I delete them from my phone once they are in FOREVER.  Are there junk photos that I don't need - yes, but really easy to go in and do a quick dumping of the stuff I don't need.

We are working on her project of finding those photos and setting up her free 2gb account so that she will not have to experience this feeling ever again.
Want more information? Reach out to me by email - info@hoosierphotoorganizer.com or call me.  Let's not lose our photos because of something that is preventable.