How many photos do you take? How many do you print?

[Jellyfish]

Was thinking about this thread because I think I have a (slight) taking photos of my kids addiction. I got a new camera for Christmas so it has been 4 days and already it has over 600 photos on it. So about 150 a day but it is new so there is that.

Then I checked my phone which I only got in July (and still has the answering machine of my brother because it used to be his lol) has over 9000 photos on it. So still about 60 photos a day on average. Still seems pretty high!! But then I tell myself well a photo takes what, 5 seconds tops to take so even times 60 is only a few minutes out of the day right??? And that seems to make sense, I don't feel like I have my phone/camera on me much, I usually spend a few minutes taking some pictures then put them away and get stuck into whatever we are doing then might bring it out mid-way or towards the end again for different perspectives. I'm also a big "I'll just quickly snap a billion and one is sure to turn out" photographer because well, kids so that surely inflates things and of course then heaps turn out really good and showing subtle things my kids are doing which fascinates me, I am a little in awe of the way children develop and learn so I'll see DD2 transferring through her palm and go a little mental about it like she has just flown to the moon while others are just like "huh? Oh yes, that's great dear" lol.

I think I have gotten better, I used to feel almost panicky if I didn't have a way to take photos on me, like moments would suddenly be lost and I wouldn't be able to hold onto them strong enough. But then I started looking at it from a different perspective, about how it was a special moment just for me and whoever was there, the privilege of having that moment and not having to share it with anybody else and I don't feel panicky anymore. In fact I now enjoy leaving them behind at times and just soaking in my kids all for me! I also journal every day and have for a long long long time so I think the whole thought of lost memories is a big fear thing for me. I'm not sure how to let go of that... anybody have a similar fear? And I also don't want family to feel left out of our lives, especially those far away because they always lament about the missed moments and large distance so there is this guilt about whether I am allowing them a big enough window in. i guess this is more about the sharing than taking though but anyway.

Anybody feel me???

[wysiwyg]

And I also don't want family to feel left out of our lives, especially those far away because they always lament about the missed moments and large distance so there is this guilt about whether I am allowing them a big enough window in. i guess this is more about the sharing than taking though but anyway.

Anybody feel me???

I don't have a fear of lost memories but I do share the feeling about family feeling left out, ours is all the other side of the world, so are all our friends pre 28 years old - so I do take a lot of photos and I do share a lot of them.

I use burst on my phone quite a lot so can easily run up 60 photos in a minute.

Regarding storage, I really don't do anything specific, I use Google Picasa desktop to import from my camera and via dropbox to import from my phone - it stores them in folders according to date taken. That is about it for organisation. You can tag people and places in it, which I sometimes do, but haven't for photos for quite a while (I do photos of kids artwork and tag those in it though). There is a timeline feature in it so can show pics from certain time period which is useful.

I am now also auto-backup to Google Photos (part of Google+) - the photos are private until you choose to share, and stored at full-resolution (you get quite a big allocation of space) - it has a feature called Auto-Awesome - which amongst other things makes animated gif.s of photos captured in a small time frame - e.g. with burst. Some are lame - but sometimes the animated gif captures the moment better than the picture. At Christmas it had a feature where it made things sparkle - it was quite unnerving when I first saw the picture and saw Santa's eye twinkling.

I don't have enough faith in external hard drives etc. I have had externals fail, I reckon am less likely to lose my pictures using google+, flickr, dropbox or similar.

I don't print many - only occasionally to send to less technology savvy relatives. I have little interest in individual prints for myself. I did do some photobooks up to DD being 1 - but she is 4.5 now so I am well behind :-). I will probably end up using one of the services that takes the pictures from FB timeline to do one automatically.

I agree there are some activities that is better to be engaged in (concerts for example, and fireworks (because they are over so quick) you will never capture what you observe) - but also I think sometimes taking photos for me is a good distraction from interfering with what the kids are doing and getting involved (because I love playing) - they need to be left to do their own thing, and at the age they are at I can't just leave them at the park - so the camera gives me something to do, it could be reading a book, but for me it is the camera.

[Jellyfish]

I agree there are some activities that is better to be engaged in (concerts for example, and fireworks (because they are over so quick) you will never capture what you observe) - but also I think sometimes taking photos for me is a good distraction from interfering with what the kids are doing and getting involved (because I love playing) - they need to be left to do their own thing, and at the age they are at I can't just leave them at the park - so the camera gives me something to do, it could be reading a book, but for me it is the camera.

Ooo I like this. And it is so true.