DIY Photo Organising

What little choices in your photo habits might make a big difference—for you and the planet? 

In this eye-opening episode, Fiona and Chantal delve into the hidden impact of the staggering 2.1 trillion photos expected to be taken in 2025. 

Together, we explore the ripple effects of our photo-taking and storing habits—on the environment, our mental wellbeing, and the way we connect with others. With gentle insights and practical tips, this episode encourages you to rethink your relationship with your photo library—from cloud backups to emotional overload, from printing practices to digital clutter. 

What You’ll Hear in This Episode 

• Mind-blowing stats: What 2.1 trillion photos a year really means 

• The environmental toll of digital storage: cloud servers, cooling systems, e-waste & energy use 

• The carbon footprint of printed photos (and what to consider before you hit “print”) 

• The mental load of photo overwhelm: decision fatigue, anxiety, and the myth of “infinite storage” 

• How photos impact social dynamics and intergenerational storytelling 

• Practical and sustainable photo management tips to reduce your footprint without losing your memories 

Why It Matters 

By bringing more intention, sustainability, and self-awareness to our photo habits, we can reduce our impact—on the planet and ourselves—and reconnect with the purpose behind the memories we choose to keep. 

Related episodes 

Episode 060 How many photos do we really need? 

Episode 072 Which 100 photos would you choose to document your life? 

Episode 103 Swedish Death Cleaning and Photos with Caroline Guntur – The Swedish Organizer 

Episode 109 A Conversation about Legacy, Photos and Life with Nancy Rose – Compass Rose Legacy Foundation 

If you have any photo-related questions we haven't answered yet in one of the previous episodes, please don't hesitate to share them with us via the Wishlist for Future Episodes! 

We invite you to have a look through our DIY Photo Organising Courses so you can decide which of these courses might be what you need to help you move forward with your photo organising projects. 

If you’d like to learn more about us, go to: 

www.diyphotoorganising.com.au  

Fiona McLauchlan’s website: www.counsellingmemories.com.au or 

Chantal Imbach’s website: www.photosinorder.com.au  

If you are not in Melbourne and would like to explore having a Photo Manager help you, check out www.thephotomanagers.com to find help closer to home. 

*affiliate link 

How do you keep your photos safe and organised while you travel? 

This episode takes you behind the scenes of Chantal’s 12-week family adventure through Europe to share the simple system that kept their photos organised from day one. 

What You’ll Hear in This Episode 

• Pre-trip planning tips – how a little preparation can save you hours later. 

• The daily photo routine – a quick practice that stopped photo chaos in its tracks. 

• Managing multiple devices – from four iPhones and two cameras, we explain how it all came together. 

• Backup strategies that work on the go – because having multiple copies is peace of mind. 

• What worked (and what didn’t!) – honest lessons learned from real-life travel. 

Why It Matters 

Organising photos while you travel isn’t about perfection—it’s about peace of mind.  

Related episodes 

Episode 002 Golden Rule 1 - Backup 

Episode 005 Golden Rule 4 – Sort and Organise (Part 1 – Digital Photos) 

Episode 016 Keep photos safe while travelling 

Episode 038 Learn how to take photos you will want to keep - with guest Lauren Sandford 

Episode 058 Time to get your Backup sorted! 

Episode 087 Transferring Android phone photos to a computer 

Episode 090 How to share your family photos using SmugMug 

Episode 093 Digital Photo Management on the Go 

Episode 112 Photo management resources packed with fabulous ideas 

If you have any photo-related questions we haven't answered yet in one of the previous episodes, please don't hesitate to share them with us via the Wishlist for Future Episodes! 

We invite you to have a look through our DIY Photo Organising Courses so you can decide which of these courses might be what you need to help you move forward with your photo organising projects. 

If you’d like to learn more about us, go to: 

www.diyphotoorganising.com.au  

Fiona McLauchlan’s website: www.counsellingmemories.com.au or 

Chantal Imbach’s website: www.photosinorder.com.au  

If you are not in Melbourne and would like to explore having a Photo Manager help you, check out www.thephotomanagers.com * to find help closer to home. 

*affiliate link 

For years, our industry has celebrated September as Save Your Photos Month, dedicated to photo preservation and management. Throughout the month, professionals host free events covering various topics to help you protect and organise your photos.

This year, The Photo Managers are thrilled to offer exciting YouTube LIVE events twice a week, along with locally hosted gatherings by professional photo organizers around the globe. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to receive free training and join a fantastic community! 

Be sure to sign up here for reminders and updates about upcoming SYPM events.

As Fiona completes her studies and final exams, and with Chantal traveling for a few months, our podcast will be on a brief hiatus. We’ll return refreshed early next year.

In the meantime, we encourage you to make the most of Save Your Photos Month (sign up for free here) and explore our partners’ courses. Why not take this time to upskill and learn something new to better manage your photos? There’s something for everyone, whether you're looking for a short or a comprehensive course. Check them out here.

Mentioned Links

Related episodes

Episode 002 Golden Rule 1 - Backup

Episode 005 Golden Rule 4 – Sort and Organise (Part 1 – Digital Photos)

Episode 006 Golden Rule 4 – Sort and Organise (Part 2 – Printed Photos)

Episode 007 Golden Rule 5 – Do Something!

Episode 008 Create a Yearly Photobook

Episode 016 Keep photos safe while travelling

Episode 017 What does a Photo Organiser do?

Episode 024 Transferring photos from iPhone to Windows PC

Episode 026 Will your Photos survive a Disaster?

Episode 034 Storytelling with Your Photos with Mara Morrison - The Filing Fairies

Episode 037 Exploring Genealogy with Caroline Guntur - The Swedish Organizer

Episode 038 Learn how to take photos you will want to keep! with Lauren Sandford- The Eternal Second

Episode 045 Questions People Ask 3 How do I add tags in Windows Explorer?

Episode 054 How to Design your 2020 Year Book

Episode 055 Questions People Ask 7 How do I take memorable Christmas Photos?

Episode 056 2021 Trends in Photography

Episode 057 Story Jotting with Katie Chambers- Memories to Legacy

Episode 058 Time to get your Backup sorted!

Episode 067 DIY Photo Organising Courses with Miss Freddy, Adam Pratt and Caroline Guntur

Episode 068 Pet Photos

Episode 069 Photo traditions to document growth and change

Episode 072 Which 100 photos would you choose to document your life?

Episode 073 What is Save Your Photos Month?

Episode 075 A listener’s photo journey - with Lisa Johnston - listener

Episode 082 Planning Photo Projects

Episode 088 Expert tips on photo archiving with Kate Jacus - The Photo Curator

Episode 094 What’s A Photo Without Story with Hazel Thornton – Organized for Life and Beyond

Episode 101 Design Photo Books like a Pro with Libby Jeffery - Momento

Episode 102 Is using only a folder structure outdated?

Episode 104 Photo Project Ideas and a Real Life Example

Episode 109 A Conversation about Legacy, Photos and Life with Nancy Rose – Compass Rose Legacy Foundation

If you have any photo-related questions we haven't answered yet in one of the previous episodes, please don't hesitate to share them with us via the Wishlist for Future Episodes!

We invite you to have a look through our DIY Photo Organising Courses so you can decide which of these courses might be what you need to help you move forward with your photo organising projects.

If you’d like to learn more about us, go to:

www.diyphotoorganising.com.au 

Fiona Staff’s website: www.photohelper.com.au or

Chantal Imbach’s website: www.photosinorder.com.au 

If you are not in Melbourne and would like to explore having a Photo Manager help you, check out www.thephotomanagers.com to find help closer to home.

Some links might be affiliate links

Today we are going to talk about identifying, converting and managing videos and home movies. Videos are of course part of our collection, and we feel is very important for us to do an episode just on videos – so we brought in and expert to explore this topic with us: Adam Pratt from Chaos to Memories. 

Regular listeners might remember Adam from previous episodes, and you might also remember that we love his courses*, about which we talked in episode 67. He has added new ones in the meantime and we highly encourage you to check them out. 

Adam loves people, photography, and a good story. After working at Adobe for 22 years he founded Chaos to Memories which is a professional photo and video preservation studio in Chicago. He’s also the author of the best-selling book, Declutter Your Photo Life about which we talked in episode 92.

Today, we will talk about videos and movies specifically because photos and movies are of course similar but different.

We are not only discussing and listing what to gather when you want to tackle this project, we also talk about preserving - which is the conversion from old to new media (check out  episode 42)  - and decluttering.

Finally, we chat about the fun part once everything is organised. And yes, we agree with Adam in saying that we recommend culling the unnecessary and unneeded videos, sorting them and adding some metadata before starting to create projects. It will be so much easier and so much fun!

Mentioned Links

Related episodes

Episode 003 Golden Rule 2 – Know Your Why

Episode 004 Golden Rule 3 – Create a Hub

Episode 007 Golden Rule 5 – Do Something!

Episode 024 Transferring photos from iPhone to Windows PC

Episode 042 What format is that? Converting Old Media to Digital with Adam Pratt- Chaos to Memories

Episode 067 DIY Photo Organising Courses with Miss Freddy, Adam Pratt and Caroline Guntur

Episode 082 Planning Photo Projects

Episode 092 Declutter Your Photo Life with Adam Pratt - Chaos to Memories

If you have any photo-related questions we haven't answered yet in one of the previous episodes, please don't hesitate to share them with us via the Wishlist for Future Episodes!

We invite you to have a look through our DIY Photo Organising Courses so you can decide which of these courses might be what you need to help you move forward with your photo organising projects.

If you’d like to learn more about us, go to:

www.diyphotoorganising.com.au 

Fiona Staff’s website: www.photohelper.com.au or

Chantal Imbach’s website: www.photosinorder.com.au 

If you are not in Melbourne and would like to explore having a Photo Manager help you, check out www.thephotomanagers.com to find help closer to home.

*affiliate link

We’ve all been there! We finally want to tackle that photo organising project, we’re off to a good start and motivated and then we encounter the first roadblock which stops us in our tracks. Next thing we know: we are procrastinating and the project comes to a halt. 

Here are some of the most common roadblocks we have encoutered:

We discuss solutions to all those roadblocks and also invite you to listen to episodes 49 and 106 that are all about how to stop procrastination (see links in related episodes below)! And don’t forget to download our free e-guide about this very topic here!

Mentioned Links

Related episodes

Episode 002 Golden Rule 1 - Backup

Episode 003 Golden Rule 2 – Know Your Why

Episode 004 Golden Rule 3 – Create a Hub

Episode 005 Golden Rule 4 – Sort and Organise (Part 1 – Digital Photos)

Episode 006 Golden Rule 4 – Sort and Organise (Part 2 – Printed Photos)

Episode 007 Golden Rule 5 – Do Something!

Episode 013 Scan or not to Scan

Episode 023 5 Steps to get you Started NOW

Episode 031 What to do with inherited photos

Episode 033 5 Golden Rules Highlights 

Episode 034 Storytelling with Your Photos with Mara Morrison - The Filing Fairies

Episode 035 Introducing you to the world of Digital Scrapbooking with Melissa Shanhun - Digital Scrapbooking HQ

Episode 047 What should I do with my old photo albums?

Episode 049 How to Stop Procrastinating about your Photos

Episode 057 Story Jotting with Katie Chambers- Memories to Legacy

Episode 059 What Photo Management Software is Right for Me?

Episode 067 DIY Photo Organising Courses with Miss Freddy, Adam Pratt and Caroline Guntur

Episode 070 Realistic time frames in Photo Organising

Episode 071 Realistic time frames when Scanning

Episode 072 Which 100 photos would you choose to document your life? 

Episode 076 What to do with slides

Episode 082 Planning Photo Projects

Episode 088 Expert tips on photo archiving with Kate Jacus - The Photo Curator

Episode 089 5 tips for sorting printed photos

Episode 094 What’s A Photo Without Story with Hazel Thornton – Organized for Life and Beyond

Episode 095 What to do with Negatives

Episode 097 How a timeline can help with photo organising

Episode 104 Photo Project Ideas and a Real Life Example

Episode 106 How to move forward and stop procrastinating

Also published on our YouTube channel.

We are honoured to have another wonderful guest with us: Nancy Rose from the Compass Rose Legacy Foundation. Nancy is a Legacy Doula and the Executive Director of Compass Rose Legacy Foundation. Her lens captures the profound beauty of human stories and the moments that define our legacies.

Join us to find out what we mean when we talk about a legacy, what it encompasses and how a possible outcome might look like. 

Find out how Nancy helps people to capture the essence of their life and to find the soul thread, as she calls it. She shares touching and some personal stories that you will hopefully find as inspiring as we do.

You will be astonished to hear that she has brought her personal legacy down to 5 - yes, that’s five!!! - pictures and stories to capture the core of her life story. 

Nancy also shares some practical tips and tools she uses to capture stories and much more.

Again, please watch it here (and subscribe to the channel, we might add more videos in the future) and share with anybody who might be interested - thanks!

Mentioned Links

Related episodes

Episode 003 Golden Rule 2 – Know Your Why

Episode 007 Golden Rule 5 – Do Something!

Episode 031 What to do with inherited photos

Episode 034 Storytelling with Your Photos with Mara Morrison - The Filing Fairies

Episode 035 Introducing you to the world of Digital Scrapbooking with Melissa Shanhun - Digital Scrapbooking HQ

Episode 037 Exploring Genealogy with Caroline Guntur - The Swedish Organizer

Episode 041 Managing your photos and videos using FOREVER with Shelley Murray - Photo Organising Services

Episode 057 Story Jotting with Katie Chambers- Memories to Legacy

Episode 072 Which 100 photos would you choose to document your life?

Episode 077 Why bother preserving your photos?

Episode 082 Planning Photo Projects

Episode 088 Expert tips on photo archiving with Kate Jacus - The Photo Curator

Episode 094 What’s A Photo Without Story with Hazel Thornton – Organized for Life and Beyond

Episode 103 Swedish Death Cleaning and Photos with Caroline Guntur – The Swedish Organizer

If you have any photo-related questions we haven't answered yet in one of the previous episodes, please don't hesitate to share them with us via the Wishlist for Future Episodes!

We invite you to have a look through our DIY Photo Organising Courses so you can decide which of these courses might be what you need to help you move forward with your photo organising projects.

If you’d like to learn more about us, go to:

www.diyphotoorganising.com.au 

Fiona Staff’s website: www.photohelper.com.au or

Chantal Imbach’s website: www.photosinorder.com.au 

If you are not in Melbourne and would like to explore having a Photo Manager help you, check out www.thephotomanagers.com to find help closer to home.

This episode has to do with our Golden Rule 5 - Do something! What we mean is find means to bring your photos back into your life so you can enjoy them.

One beautiful way of doing so is creating a photo wall or a photo gallery in your home. We are excited to have our colleague and expert Haleh Shoa from Picturli back for this episode! 

She not only shares some practical tips but actually shows us how she designs a photo wall using Canva. Hence, we strongly encourage you to watch this episode rather than listen. If you prefer to listen, click here to see the screenshots of the visuals she shared with us.

You don’t necessarily need Canva to design your photo wall, Haleh also shares some simple tips about how to tackle it without digital help. 

We talk about

Again, please watch it here (and subscribe to the channel, we might add more videos in the future) and share with anybody who might be interested - thanks!

Mentioned Links

Related episodes

If you have any photo-related questions we haven't answered yet in one of the previous episodes, please don't hesitate to share them with us via the Wishlist for Future Episodes!

We invite you to have a look through our DIY Photo Organising Courses so you can decide which of these courses might be what you need to help you move forward with your photo organising projects.

If you’d like to learn more about us, go to:

www.diyphotoorganising.com.au 

Fiona Staff’s website: www.photohelper.com.au or

Chantal Imbach’s website: www.photosinorder.com.au 

If you are not in Melbourne and would like to explore having a Photo Manager help you, check out www.thephotomanagers.com to find help closer to home.

Are you expecting a baby? Then this episode is totally for you! Even if you have already welcomed your baby recently, we encourage to join us, we’re sure there is a tip or two for everyone with children.

When a new baby comes into our life, many things change and sometimes routines and habits simply fly out the window and life can get a bit chaotic. Before we know it, photo chaos has taken over and we are drowning in cute baby photos. 

Listen in to hear some tips about how you can stay on top of things when it comes to your photo management. One key is preparation. Now is not the time to work through your backlog of thousands of photos. However, if you can, make sure that your backlog is backed up so it will be there once you are ready to curate that collection.

Nothing stops you from implementing a system if you haven’t got one yet. Regularly transfer your photos to your photo hub and back it up using the 3-2-1 method (more about that in our 5 Golden Rules episodes). Hone your skills before baby arrives and it will be so much easier for you.

This great new iPhone app to help clean up your camera roll is Ollie*. You can get it at a discounted rate using this link* and the code DIYPHOTO20.

Also a great place to start is to take one of Miss Freddy’s courses, especially the Backup Bootcamp* or check out the many courses over at The Photo Managers Academy* to find a suitable course.

Finally, we’ like to encourage you to be mindful about privacy when sharing photos. Refer to Episode 099 to learn more about this topic. You even might want to have a chat with relatives about it, too, so that nobody shares photos of your children if you’re not comfortable with it.  

Mentioned Links / Products

Related episodes

Episode 002 Golden Rule 1 - Backup

Episode 003 Golden Rule 2 – Know Your Why

Episode 004 Golden Rule 3 – Create a Hub

Episode 005 Golden Rule 4 – Sort and Organise (Part 1 – Digital Photos)

Episode 018 Manage your photos using your iPhone

Episode 023 5 Steps to get you Started NOW

Episode 033 5 Golden Rules Highlights

Episode 038 Learn how to take photos you will want to keep! with Lauren Sandford- The Eternal Second

Episode 049 How to Stop Procrastinating about your Photos

Episode 052 Questions People Ask 5 How do I gather photos from other family members?

Episode 053 Questions People Ask 6 How do I share photos with others?

Episode 057 Story Jotting with Katie Chambers- Memories to Legacy

Episode 058 Time to get your Backup sorted!

Episode 060 How many photos do we really need?

Episode 063 The Magic of Maintenance

Episode 067 DIY Photo Organising Courses with Miss Freddy, Adam Pratt and Caroline Guntur

Episode 069 Photo traditions to document growth and change

Episode 080 5 Essential Photo Management Tips

Episode 099 Privacy Terms when sharing Photos with Allison Freedman – Arrange Wander Focus

If you have any photo-related questions we haven't answered yet in one of the previous episodes, please don't hesitate to share them with us via the Wishlist for Future Episodes!

We invite you to have a look through our DIY Photo Organising Courses so you can decide which of these courses might be what you need to help you move forward with your photo organising projects.

If you’d like to learn more about us, go to:

www.diyphotoorganising.com.au 

Fiona Staff’s website: www.photohelper.com.au or

Chantal Imbach’s website: www.photosinorder.com.au 

If you are not in Melbourne and would like to explore having a Photo Manager help you, check out www.thephotomanagers.com to find help closer to home.

* We want to keep this podcast is ad-free. Instead, we have partnered with affiliate course creators we highly recommend and hence earn a little commission if you buy a course through us. If you do so, you help us running the podcast and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Are you good at procrastinating about your photos? Well, you are not alone!

Since Chantal is planning to run mini-classes / workshops soon she recently conducted a survey to find out what readers and listeners are interested in most. The clear winner was ‘How to Stop Procrastinating about my Photos’.

Interestingly, Fiona and Chantal have already created an e-guide (downloadable here) about that very topic.

Since it seems to be such a popular topic, we are re-visiting some of its content and are diving a bit deeper in some of the reasons why we tend to procrastinate when it comes to our photos and what we can do about it.

Possible and typical reasons are for example the lack of knowledge of how to do something, using goals that are too abstract or perfectionism. 

Get our free e-guide to see more details here!

The big question is how we can overcome procrastination and, unsurprisingly, we recommend to become really clear about your Why, which is our Golden Rule 2. 

Not only this, we are also talking about individual’s core values such as integrity, honesty, creativity and many more, and how these can influence our Why. As always, we are using practical examples that hopefully encourage you to getting started.

Mentioned Links / Products
Survey re online classes

E-guide How to Stop Procrasting about your Photos

Related episodes

Episode 003 Golden Rule 2 – Know Your Why

Episode 023 5 Steps to get you Started NOW

Episode 032 New Year’s Resolutions with your photos

Episode 033 5 Golden Rules Highlights

Episode 049 How to Stop Procrastinating about your Photos

Episode 070 Realistic time frames in Photo Organising

Episode 082 Planning Photo Projects

If you have any photo-related questions we haven't answered yet in one of the previous episodes, please don't hesitate to share them with us via the Wishlist for Future Episodes!

We invite you to have a look through our DIY Photo Organising Courses so you can decide which of these courses might be what you need to help you move forward with your photo organising projects.

If you’d like to learn more about us, go to:

www.diyphotoorganising.com.au 

Fiona Staff’s website: www.photohelper.com.au or

Chantal Imbach’s website: www.photosinorder.com.au 

If you are not in Melbourne and would like to explore having a Photo Manager help you, check out www.thephotomanagers.com to find help closer to home.

We are excited and honoured to welcome David Vaskevitch from Mylio Photos today.

Tune in to find out why he thinks of Mylio Photos not only as his second heart but also his second brain. He shares some of his personal stories that wonderfully show how a good photo management program can help us keep memories alive and also have fun with our photos.

We learn about various features Mylio Photos offers, such as:

There are many more things to learn about Mylio Photos and as David said: “learning Mylio is a journey and you can start small”. He encourages us all to not shy away from it because it might look overwhelming at first glance. In his words: “if you learned to drive a car, you can easily learn Mylio!”

We encourage you to have a look at this program, especially if you don’t use another one yet and are looking for a solution to store and manage your memories. Check it out here. You can start with the free plan before making any decisions.

Mylio Photos also has a great support team that can help you if you have questions or find lots of tutorials over at their YouTube channel.

Mentioned Links

Related episodes

Episode 002 Golden Rule 1 – Backup

Episode 004 Golden Rule 3 – Create a Hub

Episode 005 Golden Rule 4 – Sort and Organise (Part 1 – Digital Photos)

Episode 009 Understanding Photo Metadata
Episode 016 Keep photos safe while travelling

Episode 019 Synchronising vs Backing Up

Episode 024 Transferring photos from iPhone to Windows PC

Episode 026 Will your Photos survive a Disaster?

Episode 028 What to do with your Work Photos

Episode 030 Backing up Apple Devices without iTunes

Episode 039 Photos that DON’T belong in a Photo Collection

Episode 044 Questions People Ask 2 How do I rename my photos?

Episode 052 Questions People Ask 5 How do I gather photos from other family members?

Episode 053 Questions People Ask 6 How do I share photos with others?

Episode 058 Time to get your Backup sorted!

Episode 059 What Photo Management Software is Right for Me?

Episode 066 Make your photos searchable with keywords

Episode 087 Transferring Android phone photos to a computer

Episode 093 Digital Photo Management on the Go

Episode 102 Is using only a folder structure outdated?

If you have any photo-related questions we haven't answered yet in one of the previous episodes, please don't hesitate to share them with us via the Wishlist for Future Episodes!

We invite you to have a look through our DIY Photo Organising Courses so you can decide which of these courses might be what you need to help you move forward with your photo organising projects.

If you’d like to learn more about us, go to:

www.diyphotoorganising.com.au 

Fiona Staff’s website: www.photohelper.com.au or

Chantal Imbach’s website: www.photosinorder.com.au 

If you are not in Melbourne and would like to explore having a Photo Manager help you, check out www.thephotomanagers.com to find help closer to home.