The following is a guest post by Alli Worthington.

Some of us are born with a level head and the seemingly innate ability to develop systems to get organized. Me? Not so much, I was drowning in loose pieces of paper and post-it notes. I wrote everything down, had great plans to stay organized, but never could keep up with where the paper went.

Then I fell in love with my trusty camera phone. I’ve gathered some of my favorite tips that work with both Apple and Android phones. Ready to get started? Great, here we go.
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Written by contributor Angie Warren

Urban Dictionary describes iPhoneography as: The act or practice of snapping quick digital pictures and performing post-processing and sharing from within the mobile phone itself.

I describe iPhoneography as the perfect documentress, a quick (and easy) way to seamlessly shoot what’s right in front of you. In this day and age, smartphones are everywhere and the cameras within them are getting better and better. Today I want to share some of my own tricks and tips (and favorite apps), in hopes that you find shooting with your phone as much fun as I do!

Apps, Apps, & more Apps

Half the fun of using your smart phone for photography are the wide variety of apps available to enhance and play around with your images.

Instagram

Instagram has taken the world by storm. In a moments time you can snap an image, apply a filter, and share a quick thought. Make your account private (and approve who sees your photos) or public. Network with friends and family near and far (and email your IGs to those who may not have a smart phone, as I do with my grandmother.) You can use hash tags to keep images together of your own or a group you belong to, and they are constantly updating with new and exciting options.

Cost: Free

Phonto

Phonto is an app I am asked about every week and a definite fave of mine. Use an image in your album, take a fresh photo, or use a plain color and add amazing text to your pictures. I absolutely love the font choices and flexibility of this app.

Cost: Free

Photo Frame & FX

It does just that. Photo Frame & FX is an easy to use app that allows you to group together 1-4 photos in collage form. You can choose various ratios and even (gasp) round your corners.

Cost: Free

PS Express

PS Express is a great app by Adobe that has endless possibilities, but what I use it for most is straightening and occasional cropping needs. I am a stickler for my horizon lines but when I’m trying to catch a quick photo of my kids or a fleeting moment I’m not always thinking of my angle, so I find this app rather helpful.

Cost: Free

Squaready

Squaready was designed for use with Instagram. It enables you to share a photo on Instagram while keeping the original ratio of your image. Instagram automatically crops your picture to a 5:5 square – but with Squaready you are able to add a border to your photo, as seen above.

Cost: Free

Tilt Shift Gen

Tilt Shift Gen gives you the look of a Tilt Shift lens, allowing you to control the lens blur – from the shape, opacity, and size. It’s a nifty little tool to use when you want to bring the focus to a certain point in the image (such as my son’s thumb and tomato plant in the images above).

Cost: 99c

VSCO Cam

VSCO Cam is my no questions asked favorite app for filter/enhancement. It’s a simple and easy platform that gives your photos a unique, film-like quality with loads of options from adding grain, to fading, to bumping contrast.

Cost: 99c

 

Then What?

Printing, Displaying, & Enjoying

Just as we’ve become accustomed to keeping the digital images from our cameras in technological storage, the photos we capture with our phones just may see a similar fate. Here are a few creative ideas for getting them printed and out of your phone.

A Book

Kimberly Dunbar had her Instagram images printed into some beautiful 7×7 hardcover Instagram photo books by Blurb. The website has an application that quickly brings your Instagram images into the platform allowing for an easy and fun creation process.

I recently created a small coil-bound book through Paper Coterie of my daughter’s first months, through the lens of my iPhone. I uploaded the images to their site and within minutes had created a simple book my kids love to look through.

Wall Collage

Tracy Larsen recently shared about her 20×20 framed collages on her blog. I love the look of these photos together, they tell such a story – each in their own individual way. Tracy created blank templates in Photoshop and printed through Sam’s Club, trimmed to size, and framed. Gorgeous!

Becky of HB Photography had her poster printed through Printstagram. She ordered a 20×30 poster and says “I chose to display them in poster form so I could pack a
lot of day to day memories of the boys just in to one small space!”. Printstagram has endless options for printing your Instagram photos, including books, boxes, and even stickers.

Just… print!

I love that Tracy also uses her iPhone pictures for their families Project Life albums. Not only is she documenting such fleeting moments but she’s actually focused and intent on printing them so that they can flip through these pages for years to come.

I hope that you’ve been inspired and encouraged to not only enjoy shooting with your phone, but to bring those images to life by printing and displaying them.

I’m always on the lookout for new and creative ways to play with my iPhone images, what’s your favorite app?

 

Written by Jeannett Gibson of Life Rearranged.

I’m working through Tsh’s ebook One Bite at a Time, one project at a time. The tasks don’t have to be accomplished in any order, so feel free to pick up a copy of the ebook for only $5 and jump in at any time!

Of all the projects in the ebook, this was the one that gave me the most anxiety.

The concept of digital image management is the proverbial monkey on my back. I have not only read stories, but also have dear friends, who have had their hard drives crash in a blaze of glory. I’m told over and over again that it’s not a matter of if it will happen…but when.

Thousands of images, years of memories, and millions of megapixels gone forever. Or at least not to be recovered without a hefty sum. All those birthday parties, first steps, spaghetti sauce messes, and newborn toes irretrievable.
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Photo by Bernat Casero

This weekend, our family had a professional photo shoot for our annual photos.  We actually had a great experience, which, if you have small children, you understand is no small feat.

This is definitely the time of year when families endure the grueling procedure of getting everyone in their clan to look happy and peaceful into the camera for a few minutes – all for the sake of sending out copies to loved ones.

Even though it can be a pain, in the end, it really is worth it to document your family in each life stage.  Use the Christmas season as your excuse to take that photo, and make it your weekly project to prepare for the season.

Here are some ways to make the entire family photo experience a positive one:

1. Schedule the photo shoot when kids are at their happiest. Usually, at least for little ones, this means 5 to 6 p.m. is not the best time.  You can’t always get the time you want, but if you have any control over this aspect at all, I highly recommend working your appointment around your kiddos’ routines.

2. That said – lighting is important, so you may have to be flexible.  Bright, high noon sunshine is not ideal, so oftentimes, photographers prefer to shoot outdoor photos either in the morning or just before dusk.  You might have to go with the flow and let your kids’ schedule be a bit different that day.

3. Speaking of photographers – if you want a professional photo shoot, but it’s out of your budget, try looking in your local Craigslist.  Budding photographers are always wanting to expand their portfolio, so you may find someone offering a great deal.  You can also try your church, your local university, or word of mouth with your friends – there’s always someone out there who’s wanting to expand their photography business.

4. Do your best to buy a package deal that gives you all the digital files for a flat price.  This is much easier in the long run, because you’ll have control over all the printing.  It might be more up front, but it’ll probably save you in printing costs over the long haul (especially when every. single. picture. is adorable).

Photo by Chelsea Elizabeth Photography

5. Coordinate, but don’t match. This is just my opinion, as I know many families like to wear the same outfit for their portraits.  But in my experience as a holiday photo card designer, photos look better when everyone blends well, but not too much.  To be honest, when I see a photo with the entire family wearing denim shirts, all I see is a sea of denim shirts – not the people.

6. Avoid patterns. It’s okay if one family member has a simple stripe or a basic design, but too many intricate patterns detracts from faces.  If in doubt of what to wear, go with a simple, solid-colored shirt.

Photo by Andrea Janda

7. Go casual. Especially if you have little ones.  I love photos that look like the family is relaxed, having fun with each other, and basically like they do most any other day of the year.  Sure, go ahead and brush their hair and have them in clean clothes – but you’re probably fighting an uphill battle asking preschoolers to sit still more than a minute at a time.

8.  When it comes to the setting, think outside the box.  The background is not the most important subject of your photo, so keep your location simple. Many cities have beautiful parks and natural settings, but don’t forget about your backyard.  Other fun settings are front porches, old buildings, fences, and even on your master bed – let everyone play around and get goofy.

Photo by Zulpha Dawson

9.  Get closer than you think. If you’re going to take the photos (with a timer, or when it’s just the kids), I can’t emphasize this enough - get much, much closer to faces than you think you should.  Faces are what you really want to see – so get right up there.

The beauty of digital photography is that you can edit, retake, retouch, and experiment in all sorts of ways.  Have fun taking that family memento, and keep it relaxed and light-hearted.

For more tips on photography, check out:

• Digital Photography Tips for Beginners on Digital Photography School
• How to Take Great Group Photos, also at Digital Photography School
• 10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits from, again, Digital Photography School (have I told you this is a great blog?)
• Let’s Discuss Photography at Mt. Hope Chronicles
• Here’s a post on my personal blog, where I link my favorite photographer’s sites

What are your tips for family photos?  Have any plans to embark on that adventure this holiday season?

Photo by Jeremy Hall

Reader Vicki asks:

“I am truly flabergasted at what to do with ALL the photos and videos of our little guy, especially since we are hoping to have more children in the future. I love to scrapbook, but now have very little room or time for it. How do you organize your photos, what do you do with them all?”

A good question, Vicki, because even though the digital world makes photo storage so much easier, it can still cause clutter build-up.  In fact, digital photography can cause both physical clutter and mental clutter – it’s so easy to take hundreds of photos in one sitting, but then you have to decide among them all which are the best for printing.

I tried to scrapbook because I love so many of the supplies, and it quenched some of my creative thirst.  But I discovered two problems for me – one, the cost of supplies really added up; and two, I just didn’t have the time to do it well. Being a recovering perfectionist, if I can’t do something well, I’d rather not do it at all.

We, too, have tons of photos of our kids – I suppose that’s a universal issue for modern-day parents.  And it’s challenging to whittle down to the absolute best ones (who wants to delete their kids?).  But like home decluttering, it’s cathartic to delete all but the best – I promise, you won’t miss the blurry ones, and you’ll better appreciate the ones you do keep.

Here’s our family’s basic system:

• As we download photos from our camera to the computer, we store them in files labeled by the month and year.

• I sort through them and delete the unusable ones.  This is often where my husband and I part ways – he’s more inclined to keep more than I’d like.  But since it’s not a major issue for me, I default to him, and leave a photo if in doubt.

• I upload a sampling of the best photos to our family’s Flickr account.  When I have time, I edit them in Photoshop first.

• At the end of the month, we burn the month’s photos from the computer’s file on a CD, label it by the month and year, and store it in an ongoing CD book.  If the entire month’s worth of photos won’t fit on one CD, we use a DVD.

• From time to time I print a photo for framing.  We now have a good printer  at home, but when we lived in the States, we sent the files to Costco or CVS via the internet.  If I found a “free shipping” coupon online, I’d have them sent to us.  (Another benefit to that is that you can send additional copies to other addresses, always a crowd pleaser with the grandparents.)

Photo Books

We didn’t want to take any original photos overseas with us, so before we moved, we made a few photo books.  These are bound books made by services that publish your photos in a high-quality, coffee table book-like format.

You could easily make these chronologically by date, but we had four made by themes – our wedding photos and our daughter’s first year were two of them.  We’ll make another one for our son’s first year, and then after that, we’ll most likely make annual family photo books.

I used PhotoWorks, which allows you to easily design your books online.  Plus, it’s easy to find coupon codes from them around the internet (head here for free shipping, in fact).  I’m happy with the way our books printed, but there are plenty of photo book services online.

So, Vicki, that’s what I do – nothing revolutionary.  A basic five-step process:

1. download photos from the camera to the computer
2. upload some of the good ones to Flickr
3. burn all the photos each month to a CD or DVD
4. occasionally print one for framing
5. make a photo book annually

There are other options as well – digital scrapbooking has really taken off, and it can really fuel your creative juices without taking up as much room for supplies as the traditional method.  But while it’s easy to find free supplies online, the cost can add up.

For more photo inspiration, Rachel at Small Notebook wrote about her organizing system awhile back, and Heidi from Mt. Hope Chronicles also wrote a good 101 article for novice photographers.  Digital Photography School is also an excellent blog with more photography tips than you possibly have time for.

Please chime in, readers – how do you organize and store your photos?  Know of a great resource we should all know about? I’m looking forward to learning more good ideas.