I have hundreds if not a few thousand photos and videos over my 3.5+ years of traveling. A mix of ones I've taken and others I've received from friends or been tagged by mutual friends. My old computer was great for storing them (a chromebook) because I could put them on Google Drive and access them anywhere.
But then my computer started to die. My Drive started to reach capacity. Aww, crap!! What am I gonna do now? The old answer used to be burning data on discs, but not only does that become cumbersome to carry around, I don't even have a disc reader let alone a disc burner. And so I have resorted to USB drives (which I have always called "jump drives". Why? No clue.) Some Daiso shop tags later and I've got backed up photos and even slightly organized ones at that!
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Now ideally all the drives would stay in the nifty little fox bag... |
Of course now instead of a bunch of cds I now have a bunch of USB drives, but it gives me some semblance of order especially after I started dating them. Although to be fair, the first one is called "Everything before Japan". Even then it's still relatively easy to find pictures as I organized them first by country and then by city.
I'm sometimes terrified I'll lose a drive or my camera will magically delete a bunch of photos. A legitimate concern as my old camera did it once during my first trip abroad. I paid the ultimate price for an amazing photo of the Sistene Chapel. I try to balance this fear by not taking many photos. I find I remember a place or event better if I have fewer photos. Sometimes I just take 1-2 pictures to represent something that happened...and then write about it. We don't make photo albums like we used to so even after taking a bunch of photos, sometimes they are never seen again anyway.
One solution to preserving memories would be to print copies of the pictures. That way if I ever lost the drive, the file became corrupted, or the drive broke, I'd still have a paper copy. But that would mean carrying around tons of paper or mailing them back to my parents and having them sit in a box for an indeterminate amount of time. Instead I find other ways to preserve memories such as writing in my journal, making a post, or keeping a memento I then put in my journal (and hopefully make some sort of note about).
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This little journal is bursting at the seams! |
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An idea of what some of my journaling as morphed into |
It's an imperfect system as sometimes my self-discipline is lacking, but Hey! It's a work in progress! And this post came about because I was bored and wanted to see some old pictures of my first time petting a kangaroo. So I will also leave you with this.....
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You know...chilling at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary with a kangaroo |
**Please Note: All photos are property of Kira Zebroski**
Not for re-use without prior consent and approval