Books & Blogs: Finding Photo Freedom

Today’s Books & Blog Review is of Finding Photo Freedom written by guest poster Sarah Barton.

Two and half years ago, I was introduced to digital scrapbooking when I decided to create a memory book for grandmother. Using Smilebox, an online program that allows you to drop pictures into predesigned scrapbook pages, I created my first scrapbook. Since then, my passion for the hobby has grown and I have completed well over 1000 pages in just 30 months. I use My Memories Suite software for the majority of my scrapbooking, and Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop Elements for organizing and modifying my photographs.

As an avid scrapbook hobbyist, I have sought out a variety of means to spark creativity and new ideas. Most recently I participated in Finding Photo Freedom, an online class from Big Picture Classes, taught by Stacy Julian. If you are unfamiliar with Stacy Julian, she was previously editor for Simple Scrapbook magazine, and is a huge promoter of recording your life through any means possible.

I was first introduced to Ms. Julian through the Paperclipping Roundtable, a scrapbooking podcast. During several of her podcasts she alluded to her “Library of Memories,” a method she uses to organize her photographs and scrapbook her memories. I was intrigued by the details she had provided during the podcasts, and when the opportunity arose to take her “Finding Photo Freedom” course, a detailed course outlining her organizational method, I decided to participate.

The course is one of the most expensive online courses I have taken, costing $71 after a 10% coupon was applied. Lasting ten weeks, it took much of the summer to complete the course. While I have completed all of the lessons of the course, the content of the course is so rich that it will take many more months to digest all of it and a lifetime to adopt and implement some of her great ideas.

Finding Photo Freedom is an adaptation of Julian’s Library of Memory book, updated and enhanced with recent material, weekly videos and a huge number of PDF handouts. It is divided into three parts, Photo Organization and Digital Workflow, Library of Memories and Extras, and Inspired Storytelling and Sharing. I will briefly review each of the sections.

Photo Organization and Digital Workflow

The first portion of the course is dedicated to organizing your photos and creating a digital work flow for photos. In our current culture of digital photographs, our photo libraries have quickly grown and we are overwhelmed by the number of photographs in our collections. A HUGE part of finding photo freedom is creating a system of ranking your photos and identifying only the best of the best in your photo collections. Stacy Julian recommends a three star ranking system, ones are keepers, twos have a story and threes are the most favorites of the favorites. She provides tips and tricks on how to make ranking part of a digital work flow and recommends that to all students to work on ranking your collection in 15 minute increments until your entire collection is ranked.

This section of the course was one of the most challenging portions of the course, but I have found her method very useful. I haven’t yet completed ranking my entire photo library, which has over 30,000 photos in it, but I have made progress, and I love being able to see all of my favorite photos easily and quickly. Using her techniques, makes this a quick and easystep each time you download your photos from your camera.

Library of Memories and Extras

The second portion of Finding Photo Freedom deals with photo triaging and identifying the stories within your favorite pictures. During this stage, you tag your favorite photos with key words based on Stacy Julian’s four Library of Memories Albums. The four albums include People We Love, Places We Go, All about Us and Things We Love. She clearly defines what each album should contain and how to tag your photos to fit into these categories.
As I completed this step, I was greatly inspired to look at my photos with a different eye. Photos that spanned 6 years were now linked through the tagging system, and new stories came to mind as I reviewed each set of photos. For example, one of my tags in the All About Us Album was goofy fashion. As I tagged photos, I found goofy fashion pictures of my daughter from age 1 through age 6. It was so fun to see these stories that have developed over time, and really changed the way I think about scrapbooking because it reminded me of so many untold stories.

In addition to teaching you the system during these weeks, Julian also shares video of her own library of memories albums. The videos show how she moves from her digital workflow to her physical albums. Her process includes several short cuts to help her prepare for future project and scrapbook workflows. She offers amazing organization tips and tricks that are applicable to any person who has taken and developed photographs at any point in their life.

Inspired Storytelling and Sharing

Julian’s purpose in teaching her system is to help people share their stories with friends and family. To conclude the course, Stacy shares ideas that can help you quickly share stories with friends and family. Whether it is showing you how to quickly add photos to store bought gifts and or challenging you to share your story througha blog or facebook, Julian makes it seem very simple to share your stories.

The variety offered in this section provides something for everyone. I gathered a lot of great ideas for future projects, and have began working on modified photo albums for Christmas presents. Julian’s point in this section was that sharing our stories doesn’t have to be a lot of work. We can share stories of children’s schooling by sticking all of their papers and certificates in a three ring binder, or we can elaborately decorate scrapbook pages, and the outcome is the same: We have captured a little bit of our history and can easily share it with others.

Recommendations

Finding Photo Freedom is one of the best online classes I have participated in. While priced a little higher than I normally pay for online tutorials, the price point is very reasonable for the amount of content you get in this course. The material includes weekly PDFs, audio files, and video files. In addition, Big Picture Classes is a wonderful forum for classes. It is easy to navigate and provides lots of extra support. I would recommend this class to anyone who wants to share their stories with others. You will not only get great ideas about ways to share your story, but will also get everything you need to make you photo library more useful to yourself and your family.



You can visit Sarah at her blog, Scrapping Sarah’s Scribblings.

Do you use the library of memories system in your scrapbooking? What works for you? Comment below or join the conversation on facebook or twitter.

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Stephanie