Today I’m talking about what to do with printed photos that you don’t care much about, but you can’t bring yourself to throw away– photos you come across hidden among the pages of old yearbooks or stuffed in boxes, or maybe falling out of old letters or photo albums… perhaps even ones you’ve inherited, that:
space
- you don’t have a personal connection with because you can’t identify anyone in the photo (and neither can anyone else in your family); or
- include friends or relatives you can identify but the context/occasion is a mystery and something that’s just not meaningful to your immediate family/other relatives; or
- include friends or relatives you can identify but you already have plenty of better photos of them; or
- you already have exact copies of elsewhere; or
- you just can’t think of a good reason to save, and you’re trying to de-clutter!
space
I think many people who have to go through an adult loved one’s belongings after they pass away are faced with this dilemma, or who are given “stuff” after helping clean out a parent’s cabinets/garage/storage facility when the parents downsize and move to an apartment, assisted living, etc. I guess in the future this won’t be as much of an issue, as more and more photos are stored online, but for now, it’s still a “thing”. You’re faced with printed images from someone’s life, a life well-lived, and you just don’t want to throw them in the trash, almost as if it would be a sacrilege to put those smiling faces in there with used, snotty tissues, greasy pizza boxes and bags of dog poop. Besides, once the photos are gone, you may be throwing away the only recorded images of a certain place or event at a certain time…gone forever…who wants that weight on their shoulders (or brain)? I can see that being the dilemma of the pack rat– it’s so stressful to think about parting with stuff, that they just keep everything.
space
Well, I like clean spaces enough that that’s not me, coupled with the fact that when my husband and I downsized, we moved to a house with less than half the storage capacity of our previous house. So we had to go through, clean out and pare down the boxes that had previously been stowed out of sight, out of mind. Including boxes of photos saved by late relatives and photos saved by us, and the whole process was, to say the least, a head-spinning task that took weeks and then months, squeezing in time to go through things when we could. I kept some photos and threw some away, but only the photos that were out-of-focus were an easy toss– the rest that were trashed made me feel kind of sad and guilty. So in the interest of helping make this process easier for myself and others in the future, here are a few “outside the box” ideas for reusing photos instead of throwing them away:
space
1.) Give them or sell them to a vintage/antique store (or to a creative reuse center if your town is lucky enough to have one). Some vintage stores I’ve visited in my area have bins of old photos that customers can look through and buy for pennies. I’d love it if, instead of ending up in the trash, our old unloved photos might end up as part of someone’s home decor project!
space
2.) Get crafty with them– if you don’t care to keep them as photos, but you don’t want to trash them, then they’re okay to cut on or write on and and be transformed into jewelry or a mixed media collage (check out these from artist Hollie Chastain) or this black and white wall hanging from the Homeyohmy blog, or any number of other things. The Internet (especially Pinterest) is full of ideas, and there’s even ideas for using negatives and slides, if you’re the “lucky” recipient/owner of those as well.
space
3.) If you like to send printed birthday and holiday greetings, save a few photos of relatives you still keep in touch with and store them alongside your cards, and stick in one or two each time you send a card. It will be a nice surprise. For a funny twist, especially if you think they have their own copies of the photos, place the photos on self-adhesive magnetic sheets and cut around people’s faces and/or bodies, making instant photo magnets.
space
4.) Contact the historical society of the town in which the photos were taken. Some love to have donations of old photos and want to know a little about the “native son” or daughter in the photo, where they ended up and what they did in their life. Also, some city libraries have reference librarians that specialize in history– they may collect old photos or know a good source that may want some.
space
5.) Mail some to Found magazine. “Founded” in 2001 by Jason Bitner and Davy Rothbart, the irregularly published magazine and now website/social media presence celebrates humanity through all things “found,” from doodles on a napkin to interesting photos to heartfelt love letters to bits of homework assignments and precious artwork drawn by kids. The treasure trove of items they’ve featured in the magazine and online is endless and fascinating. It all began with an angry lover’s note left on Rothbart’s windshield (intended for someone else) and the discovery that a lot of people had similar interesting finds, so Rothbart and his friend, Bitner, started collecting, and highlighting their finds in the magazine. As they say at the Found website, they like anything that gives a glimpse into someone else’s life, but especially things that are a mystery (i.e. those photos you might have that you know nothing about). They still welcome submissions (yes, I did contact Found to make sure); head to foundmagazine.com for the mailing address as well as online submission info. Now that Bitner and Rothbart are successful authors (Rothbart is also an Emmy-winning filmmaker), their friend Sarah Locke manages the finds posted online; be sure to check out found_zine on Instagram. (Past issues of Found magazine may be purchased at the website; a bestselling book, Found: The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World, is available here at Amazon.) (Btw, I once found a great 70s era photo tucked inside a used paperback I’d purchased from Half Price Books; it showed a girl and an older lady, I assume her grandmother, on the steps of the White House during a tour and included a great, dramatic caption written on the back. I saved it for many years because it just seemed “iconic” and I finally mailed it to Found in the past year…hoping they like it and use it someday! If not, at least I tried!)
space
6.) If you want to preserve images but not keep the printed versions, of course you could always take the time to digitally scan each photo and then dispose. Those printed from a home computer onto card stock are recyclable (if not too small– some recyclers say their recycling systems can’t handle paper smaller than 3″ x 5″); see below for more info on recycling older photos. A great place to give the reeeally corny-looking looking images a “last hurrah” before disposing (or those with “interesting” locations, hairstyles or fashions) is the Awkward Family Photos website. AFP also sells board games, books and calendars; I think the original Awkward Family Photos board game will go down in history as my family’s favorite game, we’ve laughed so hard when we’ve played it. Basically you try to be the one to come up with the funniest captions to go with the game’s photos, which come from actual AFP submissions. (And since you can add your own printed photos to your own game’s “photo pile”, that’s yet another photo reuse option.) The AFP website makes it easy to submit both photos and video online with a “Submit Photo” tab on the navigation bar; the site states that they let you know via e-mail if/when your photo is published. Be sure to follow Awkward Family Photos on social media if you enjoy laughing– their posts are bound to make that happen!
space
Note about old photos and recycling: Even though photos old and new are printed on “paper,” and most recycling centers accept paper, no recycling centers recycle old photos (pre-digital age) because the paper was coated with a small amount of silver and the developing process added harsh chemicals into the mix, and these substances can’t be mixed in with regular paper. Modern printer ink, though, is not harmful to this mix so as stated earlier in this post, photos printed at home on card stock (or copy paper) are recylable. Other, glossy photo papers for at-home printers are “iffy” when it comes to recycling, even if the box says “recyclable.” Check with your recycling center (or on their website) to make sure.
*****
I hope you’ve enjoyed this information! Please leave a comment below!