Photo cycle

I'm caught in a photo cycle. 

Snapping pictures is the fun part--sorting, organizing and labeling them isn't always so fun. Every couple of days I transfer my pictures to the computer and sort them. I delete most of the pictures. At the end of the month I burn a photo back-up CD and then upload a month's worth of photos (200-500 shots) to Shutterfly, an online photo processing service. I type a label to be printed on the back of each photo and order pictures for our family album. 

In a few days the photos arrive in the mail, and they sit on the end table in the livingroom until I feel ambitious. Then I sort the photos into piles. Most of the photos are for our family album, but I also sort stacks of photos for each of us (the schoolchildren put their photos in their portfolios to document their schooling). I also label and sort the photos that were printed and developed from our film camera. It's a mess organizing pictures from three different cameras and I spread piles across the living room floor. In the final step I stuff the pictures into the album. By the time the album is full, I feel dizzy and I wonder why I would ever want to take another picture.

Yesterday afternoon I stuffed photos in my personal photo album. Recently I divided my Grandma's photos among us grandchildren. I put my siblings' photos in albums for them, but mine are still sitting in a shoe box in my room. Yesterday afternoon I transfered a stack of pictures from the shoe box to an album. By the time I was done, I was stressed. And when I'm stressed...I take pictures. So after I shoved the album in a corner of my room, I grabbed my camera.