Many people find writing the story the most difficult part of creating a photo album. I used to be like that. Slap in the pictures, maybe put in a caption or two, close the book and put it on the shelf.
This is the customized cover of an album, with a special message on the back cover
I started scrapbooking in 2001 and continue to this day. In the beginning there wasn’t much story other than we were here and we were doing this. Then my grandchildren were born. I decided I wanted to write the story of their lives in a way I didn’t do for my children. I wanted them to have photo albums that showed how much I loved them and what they meant to me. When I was writing the story of their pictures, I kept that in mind. And on each digital album I create I write a personal message on the back telling them when it was created and what they mean to me.
More recently I’ve been writing every day for 30 minutes. I started out writing stream of consciousness and what happened is that I began to see a bit more of me, who I am and what’s important to me. I realized from that writing that I need to put more of myself in my albums – write more about the meaning of the picture and not just who it is or where we are or what we are doing. Why am I there, what was the experience for me? What meaning did I derive from it? This is true whether it’s about a vacation, a trip to the zoo with the kids or just that random photo you catch of the kids having a good time. You took it for a reason – you saw something happening that you wanted to capture. Write about that – what you saw behind the activity, what it was you wanted to capture. It wasn’t just the sunlight on her hair, it was that it reminded you of when she was a baby with a head of bright white curls and how it made you smile at the memory and well up with love. See the difference?
What one picture do you have that always makes you smile? What’s the story of that picture? How do you feel when you look at it?
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