Photo organization

A friends of my does a weekly Facebook posts where she solicits the opinions and feedback of others. I enjoy this because I learn a lot about her and many of our other friends as well as gain new perspective and insight about many topics. Not too long ago she inquired about what hobbies we like. My first response was photography. I'm pretty surprised that it came to my mind first because while I take a lot of pictures I don't consider myself a photographer nor do I dedicate the time that I would like to develop that skill. But either way I still appreciate the beauty of a good photo especially when it's of my babies.


Whenever we go on vacation I aim to take 1,000 pictures. I know, that's insane but my goal of 1,000 pictures came after our vacation to Paris. Someone incorrectly told me it was the city of 1,000 lights so I thought it would be cool to take 1,000 pictures. Turns out, Paris is actually dubbed the city of lights but since then I like to take 1,000 pictures of our destinations. It's both helpful and a handicap when I go to make a photo book of the trip.

Which brings me to how I organize my photos. When you are constantly snapping pictures, you need some sort of rhyme and reason to organize them. And the Virgo in me loves to organize.


My (now) main source of picture organization is Dropbox. I love that you can access it via web, computer app or mobile app. It's cloud based so I can access the data from anywhere and I can access it using any method as long as I have an internet connection.

In my photos folder, I first organize starting by year. This helps me keep photos organized "chronologically". Although they aren't totally chronologically organized this helps me keep them in a relative order. For instance, if I am looking for my son's first birthday picture, I would start at the 2012 folder (because that's the year he turned one). I find this is best for me because if I need to find a particular folder as long as I know a general time period it happened I can find it.

Dropbox iPhone app view

I do have a few "outlier" folders. These are generally ones that need to be "put away". See those Christmas stocking pictures? I used those in a blog post which is how they landed there, I just never had the opportunity to put them where they need to go.

Desktop view

Within each yearly folder I have my photos divided in a sub folder by event. Sometimes this is alphabetical, sometimes chronological. It really doesn't matter either way cause I can use the sort function if I'm having trouble locating something.

Desktop View

Then within the sub folders are the pictures from that event. Very rarely do I rename photos from the camera's naming convention. If I have a small amount of photos where I need quick glance access to the subject then I will but that may happen once (possibly twice) per year.

Wed version view

Hopefully this little tid bit is helpful. I know there are tons of ways to go about photo organization but this works best for me. If you have a different method drop a comment below- I'd love to know!

5 on Friday: maternity pictures

Remember when I shared my inspiration for maternity photos way back when? I did two sets of maternity pictures (lucky me!). The first shoot was a surprise from my husband and I love love LOVE them! He surprised me during our baby moon and I'll forever hold dear our moments in Bermuda. Here a few:

My second shoot was one that I had planned. I wish I could share them all with you but I only have two digital versions.

I love how all the pictures from each session turned out. Hopefully it doesn't take me forever to have them printed and hung.

5 on Friday: maternity pictures inspiration

This is about the third or fourth time that I've done a post with link backs to Pinterest. It's because I can't find the original source of the photos. So instead of just stealing them, I am linking it somewhere with hope that the owner still gets credits. So if you know the source- please let me know!



I don't play around when it comes to capturing life events on "film". Most of the time I have my big girl camera with me and if I don't it's because I've reasoned that I wouldn't be able to keep up with it, protect it, or keep it safe. So I will never likely have it with me on a beach or a boat. Do you know how much damage sand does to a camera?! For the moments where I can't be the photographer (or at least an up to par photographer) I'll enlist a professional. Sometimes that professional happens to be my brother, other time it's a paid for hire person. Going into most sessions, I have an idea of the shots I'd like to capture. But, I've also learned from past sessions that  in order to accurate describe what I want to capture, words are not sufficient. At least my words aren't. I'm a horrible description. So, this time around I just bought actual example pictures. I've posted one of my inspiration boards to Instagram and here are the top 5 shots I wanted to capture.

June 9, 2013

*this was supposed to go live yesterday but momma didn't get a chance to*

On this day two years ago my baby boy turned 21 months old. I know that isn't some sort of milestone number or anything but this picture popped up in my flashback photos for today and I had to share!

I took monthly photos of him on the ninth of every month up until he was about 2.  I wish I could've kept them up but on nights like tonight where it's raining and we've been at work & school all day, I don't he'd be up to it, I wouldn't have good lighting, and my house is a wreck so who wants to see that mess in the background?! 

I loved doing these pictures. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and we had just gotten back from church. The weather was gorgeous and we were clearly taking advantage of that. Buggy had always gotten a kick out of the self timer function on the camera and this was no different. We had so much fun being silly. Look at the joy in his face!

I think this qualifies as an official 'Take me back Tuesday' photo. Now only if that were a real thing!

Momtography Monday

If you follow me on Instagram, then you've certainly seen this already. But I wanted to share a bit more of the story behind this photo.

In our household we count our rainbows- not our thunderstorms. #boymom #love #sograteful

A photo posted by frommrstomom (@frommrstomom) on May 11, 2015 at 4:59pm PDT

The weather that week had been a little crazy. It went from kind of hot (how I like it) at 88 degrees to way too cold with an overnight low of 39 degrees. But we were still determined to enjoy the warm weather when we could. So after dinner we decided to sit on the front porch and watch the rain go by. This gave me a chance to sit down (rather than chase a little boy around) and allowed him to burn off a little left over energy from the day. 
We sat and watched the rain turn from a drizzle to a downpours to a windy mess of getting misted while outside. He thought it was fantastic! I on the other had was cold.
After the storm clouds passed a beautiful rainbow appeared in the skies. It might quite possibly be the first real live rainbow that he was able to comprehend. So I decided to snap a few pics of him with it. I know this is supposed to be my momtography (using my real camera to capture photos) post but I didn't have time to get all that. So I used my phone instead. 

This time around it was less about capturing the perfect picture but instead, remembering the perfect moment.  He was fascinated by the rainbow (and quite frankly so was I). In order to get a better picture, I changed him into his rain boots and we left the porch so that so many trees and houses wouldn't be in the way of the shot. Then I had to get creative...

It was a little hard to get that juuuuust right, but who cares- he was giggling so hard I couldn't keep a steady hand anyway! I edited the one below to get the rainbow to 'stand out' more.

Once I had snapped a few pics I was ready to call it quits. But he looked at me the way only a 3 and a half year old could and asked if he could play. So I figured what the heck! So he would get a little (ok a lot) wet, and probably be dirty but I bet he would have the time of his life- and continue to burn off that extra energy. So I let him let loose- right into every single puddle on our block. By that time a few of the neighbors had come outside to see the rainbow as well and they thought he was so cute. I think jumping in puddles seem to bring anyone back to childhood memories, before marriages, before the bills, before life's twists and turns kinds of put a jaded view on the little things in life that bring happiness.

And that... is how you count rainbows and NOT thunderstorms.

Event Planner, Photographer, Family girl

I have a decision to make. I hate making decisions.


First, let me say that I value my time with my friends and family. I lead a relatively busy life and always welcome the joy and laughter that comes with gathering with people I enjoy being around. It's one of the reasons why I quit medicine. I just couldn't be at the beck and call of a hospital... not, when cousins are graduating, babies are being born, and my older aunts and uncle go on to become ancestors.

On a slightly unrelated note, I also have a love for planning a great party. Maybe it's the design, or the decor,  or maybe it's the good times that a good party can bring. You can tell by the effort that I put into my son's first birthday party- I like to do it up for a shindig.

Earlier this year I was asked to work on a party for a close family member of mine. She was turning

30 Days of Thanks

Everyone else is doing it... and so am I. I like it because it gives me a chance to stop, reflect and be grateful for my many blessings. Sometimes, I don't think I do it enough.

My plan is to show what I'm thankful for via photography. It'll be crappy iPhone pictures for the most part because all of my cameras are out of commission but I'm still gonna plug along regardless.

This week will probably the easiest and most obvious. These are my first six days of thanks (in no particular order).

day 1:

Memorial Day Weekend

Just in time for the 4th of July holiday- here is our recap of Memorial Day. And now I can come to expect that this weekend's holiday festivities will be ready in time for... Labor Day!

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I always enjoy a long weekend. Long weekends are a time for family get togethers, laughing, reminiscing, eating, and plain old good times. My parents and brother came to visit us and let me tell you- I was excited! We normally go back "home" but to have them visit us is always heartwarming to me. Anyway- we went craft beer tasting, wine tasting, ate, laughed, and just relaxed. Relaxing is a very important thing we often don't have time to do.

 Here is my recap in pictures:

Momtography

It's no secret that I love photography and I want so desperately to be a momtographer. I'm inspired daily by many mom blogger's I follow and of course Pinterest. Since my last plea for a camera of my own I don't have any updates until in recent weeks when I've taken over hubby's camera. Here's the catch- I can only shoot in manual. Don't ask why but the 'automatic' feature on the camera just doesn't work. So I've enlisted the help of my brother and godfather to help me through this.

So far all of my pictures have stunk!

I mean can it not get any worse? I've been trying to do some online research to help me get better but I have to divide my time accordingly- know what I mean? So, in honor of my instagram birthday- yes, it's my instagram birthday!!!

I'm sharing some of those here.

(From top left)

Salvation Army, Trucks!, who stole the cookies from the cookie jar, daddy's home!, best.ice.cream.ever, baby fever, barnes & noble, chipotle, I really don't want to delete any of the 3,000+ pictures off my phone even if they are backed up in 3 different locations, where the sidewalk ends.

dinner time!, blog update, our daily walk, he loves veggies, fruits, and apps, shrimpfest, halloween, something I want to try, he's going to be looking for that, our junior firefighter, desperately trying to meet Faith IRL.


Okay, so you use IG but don't follow me yet? Send me a request!!! Just let me know that you did so because my photos are set to private (I'm scared of the stalkers). And, you use IG and want your own stats? I used Statigram.com- it's a cool website that gives you all sorts of statistics- I use it just for fun and not all that often. Wait, you don't use instgram and don't really know what I'm talking about but liked looking at all the pretty pictures? You can view my IG photos via my facebook page- hop on over and "like me". Aaaaand if you can help out my photography skills- please do so!

Week 3: days 15-21

I am so proud of myself for being able to say I am week 3. I am a little behind in posting because I don't have a whole bunch of free time to edit pics but I am snapping and saving.

My fave is day 19. I am not sure why he was making this face. I think he was laugh crying. I don't know but every time I see it I giggle. Day 15 is with my Dad. My Dad watches him for me once per week while I go to dance class- this is their time together because it's just the two of them. When I got back that day they were chatting it up. Despite the pics of him sleeping day16 and 17 were not one of those 11th hour photos. I just love sleeping babies- they look so peaceful and precious. Day 21 was his first time really out in the snow. He seemed like he didn't know how to take so he just looked around trying to figure out what he should be doing.

So, what do you think?

Week 2: days 8-14

So, I'm progressing along. Although at times I'm finding myself without my camera so a lot of pictures are coming via iPhone. I also get so caught up in the day I find myself running to him at 11:49 pm and catching a picture of him sleeping. Eh, I'll get the hang of it.

I like how day 8 really captures the essence of his HUGE cheeks. Sometimes pictures just don't do it justice. At times I feel bad about the picture from day 9. I only let him cry for a second. It just so happened that the camera was right there. I remember seeing this quote on Jen's love letters and I just had to snap the picture. He looks so hurt :( I think he was mad because I put him down (momma's boy). Day 10 is so cute! We were playing at the doctor's office... I love that smile- doesn't he look like he's flirting? Day 11 is how we start out sleeping most nights. You can bet this was an 11:49 pm picture and there just so happens to be another one in week 3. Day 13 is how I left them when I went to work that day- needless to say- I was super jealous. And I can't believe I finally got a picture like day 14. I have been trying to get a picture of him sticking his tongue out since he started doing it which was way before I began the challenge. I think I can get a better one though.

2 weeks down, 52 more to go. Do you have any tips/pointers, or favorites from this week?



Week 1: days 1-7

I am so pleased with my first installment of my 365 366 day photo challenge. I must admit day 3's picture was taken at approximately 11:42 pm. I was in the bed and hubby was feeding little bit and suddenly I remembered that I hadn't did a photo that day. The majority of these pictures are iPhone photos as well. I am getting the hang of always having my camera with me though. I mean, I always have my camera with me but it's not always in my hand.

In this one short week of photo sessions, I've learned that

-I need more background space if I intend to write a message on each picture. I love to zoom in on his face and that leaves little space for messages.

-It's not easy to photograph a wiggling baby. I knew this before I started this project but it's become even clearer now.

- I may need to invest in a good photo editing program, although I'm sure I wouldn't have the time to learn how to use it or actually edit pictures using it considering I did all of these on the fly in various locations.

- It doesn't have to be perfect. I think he's going to look back on this and smile.

All in all, I also think it came out pretty good considering I used free photo editing websites to edit all the pictures. I still think this is a huge undertaking for me considering I photograph him often in various situations anyway. I just received his birth story photo book I made for him and currently I'm finishing up his 0-3 months book. Needless to say, I think he's beginning to recognize the camera. He still ignores me sometimes but I think he's starting to get it. So without further ado...

Outfit by: BuyBuybaby

My favorites photo wise are days 4 & 6. I love seeing him play. The newborn meaning of playtime is so adorable. My favorites editing wise are days 5 & 6. Simply adding frames does wonders to pictures especially when you are trying to hide messy bed clutter as in day 6. I'm linking up this post with Baby Making Machine's love letter's linky :)