Dust off those family photos
If you’re looking to inject more you into your online content…
look to the past for some new inspiration.
Recently, I noticed an uptick in the amount of childhood photos people in my community have been sharing on social.
You know, the kinds of photos that possess an extremely high awwww, cute quotient.
Several colleagues have used them for posts announcing their birthdays, or used them as part of an anecdote that ties into an important teachable moment related to their frameworks and expertise.
I’ve also photographed several clients leveraging their childhood photos for presentation slides.
All very creative ways to repurpose old, analog images in a fully digital world.
And I wanted in on the fun!
In my apartment, I have an ottoman with a storage component that houses family photos that span over 60 years…
...and I’ve done absolutely nothing with them.
Recently, I decided to dive into that bad boy and create a fun project.
At first, I was thinking of scanning them, but ultimately chose not to do that. For me, scanning them would eliminate some of the soul of the photos.
So, what did I do? Well, I photographed the photographs instead - shocker, right? :)
But, there’s albums stacked on albums stacked on filled-to-the-brim shoeboxes worth of these photos? How the hell am I going to get through all of this in a decent amount of time?
I kept it simple:
Shoot the loose ones loosely on different surfaces throughout the apartment and shoot the ones in the album exactly where they are.
Not only was this strategy borne from a practical need to get this project done quickly but it also maintains the original integrity of how these images were originally presented.
After about 6-7 hours of non-stop shooting, I made it through the gauntlet and shot 1354 images in total:
In the aftermath of this shooting bonanza, I offered myself new opportunities with all these photos from my families’ past.
While leveraging these photos for several personal projects around my apartment, I’ve followed my colleague’s lead and also used them for several professional purposes.
I’ve used a couple images as blog thumbnails, shared them in a couple social posts, and created slides with these images for an upcoming presentation.
And I’ve barely cracked the surface.
If you have time and the desire to expand the types of stories you share with your audience, my suggestion is to dig into those boxes of family albums you have stashed somewhere in your home collecting dust and snap a couple photos of those albums with your smartphone camera.
Not sure how to use them?
Think about your intellectual property and see how you can tie in aspects of your childhood in a way that will ultimately serve as a teachable moment to those you serve. And use the photo to visually punctuate those sentiments you want to impart on your audience.
The other option is to simply open up the albums and start firing away at the ones that really speak to you, and then let your mind wander as you do so. I can tell you that that option was a very fruitful one for me, as many ideas flooded my consciousness during the process and have already been acted upon.
Plus, it’s a fun way to detach from the current dumpster fire state of the world and take you back to a different, less covid-ey time in your life.
Not sure how to shoot them?
Well, funny you bring that up as I’m ruminating on an idea that involves creating another Shoot It Yourself online course that involves taking photographs of places and things like a professional photographer.
Would you find this type of course valuable and interesting?
Let me know in the comment section below.
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