The Folder

Over lunch I was talking with Buzz. The topic was digital photos. I take a lot of them. Last weekend I took about 400 pictures. Annually I take about 15,000 photos and have done this for the last several years. Buzz asked how I was ever able to keep track of those pictures. My answer – “folders”.

Everything gets a folder. Without a little planning, I could easily end up with hundreds or thousands of folders all over the place. Here is how I avoid that.

1 – All the photos from any given year go into a folder with that year’s number. Right now all my photos are going into a folder called “2007”. All of last year’s photos are in the “2006” folder.

2 – Every family member gets a folder. I have five kids. Each one gets a “personal” folder inside each year folder.

3 – Personal folders have folders for each major event. Each kid has a birthday and we take a lot of pictures on that day. For this reason, every personal folder has a “birthday” folder in it. If I am looking for the 2005 birthday pictures of Kid #3 (we have so many kids we have to number them), I look in

\2005\kid3\birthday

4 – Major family events get their own folder in the “year” folder. For instance, Easter is a big family event. Not only will there be pictures of our kids, there will be pictures of extended family members. All of last year’s Easter pictures are in

\2006\Easter

If it’s an event that covers multiple days, the “special” folder can end up with folders of its own.

\2006\Christmas\At Home
\2006\Christmas\At Alvin’s Parents
\2006\Christmas\Band Concert

By the time we add “personal” and special folders, there are about two dozen top-level folders that cover everything. Each year, as we add new pictures, we add the extra folders as needed. As it is right now, none of the kids has a birthday. None of the “personal” folders have a “birthday” folder yet. That will get added when we take some birthday pictures.

Every time new pictures are added to the collection, I synchronize my picture folder with a share on the server. This gives everyone in the house the ability to get to all the photos. Where they go from there, I have no idea.