12,000 Photos and Counting: What to Do With Your Phone Photos

There’s a number on your phone you probably haven’t looked at in a while. It might be 8,000, 12,000 or 30,000. Birthdays, beaches, the dog asleep in odd places. A hundred near-identical shots of one sunset.

Somewhere in there is a photo you’d love to see on the fridge. And another your mum would ask for a copy of.

Here’s a simple, unhurried way to find them, get them printed and make looking through your photos something you look forward to.

Why the camera roll doesn’t feel like a photo album

An album has an edge. Someone chose what went in and what didn’t, and that choosing is part of what makes it worth opening.

A camera roll just grows. A favourite family photo sits between a screenshot of a parking ticket and three blurry attempts at the same picture.

Choosing a set gives you a reason to look again. You remember the afternoon, notice a face in the background or find a photo you’d forgotten taking.

Start with one month

Trying to sort ten years of photos is how this project dies on a Sunday afternoon. Start with last month, while the details are still fresh.

Give yourself twenty minutes and choose a few photos that bring you back to the day. Five is a perfectly good start.

• Start with the people. A familiar expression, someone mid-laugh, everyone squeezed around the table.
• Include everyday life. Breakfast, the school run, someone asleep on the sofa.
• Choose one from each set. Nine shots of the same thing? Pick your favourite for printing. The others can stay on your phone.
• Skip screenshots and receipts. They can sit this one out.

Stop when you have a set you’re happy with. There’s always next month.

Print them small

Small prints fit in a hand, on the fridge, tucked into a mirror frame or a wallet. You can move them around whenever you feel like a change.

They also get handled, which is the point. A print that gets picked up, passed around and shown to visitors is doing its job.

Choose a few to display and keep the rest somewhere you can reach them.

What to write on the back

Before you put the prints away, turn them over and add a few words. Future you will be grateful for three things:

• The date. The month and year will do.
• Who was there. Include names, especially for people outside the family.
• A detail the photo doesn’t show. What you’d just eaten, what the kids were obsessed with or the song everyone kept playing.

“On the way home. Everyone was hungry.”

That’s enough. Write it the way you’d say it.

Give them somewhere to live

A box on the shelf, a strip of pegs and string on the wall, a fridge that’s allowed to get crowded. Choose somewhere the photos can become part of your day.

A box keeps a set together: one month, one trip or a first year. You can take it down, spread the photos out and see where the conversation goes.

Keep the arrangement easy to use. Adding a print or changing the ones on display should take a moment.

Make it a monthly habit

Choose a time that’s easy to return to. The first weekend of the month, perhaps, or a Sunday evening after dinner.

Open last month’s photos and let everyone choose a favourite. Ask why they picked it. Someone might remember what happened just before the picture, or what made everyone laugh.

Include the kids. They may have strong opinions about which photos make the cut.

Once the prints are ready, look through them together. Add your notes, choose which ones to display and put the rest in their place. Next month, bring out the previous set before choosing the new one.

The choosing, the conversation and the changing photos on the fridge all become part of the ritual. Keep it easy enough that you feel like doing it again.

If you’d rather not do the printing yourself

Our Polaroid Memory Box brings together 24 of your photos as Polaroid-style cards, with matte backs for dates, names and whatever else you’d like to add. Each set comes in a handcrafted linen box, made in Sydney.

You can gather those photos over several months, choose them from one trip or put together a set for someone you love.

Start with one month. The rest of the library can wait. It’s been waiting this long.