For the longest time, probably just like you, I was throwing instant film photos into a large shoebox and closing it. No labels, no organization, just one massive pile of unknown dates, locations & people. I realized that the longer my photography journey continues, the more crucial it is for images to be labeled. Once 20, 30, 40 years have gone by, and hundreds and thousands of images have been photographed across many mediums, it’ll be near impossible to remember the small details. This led me to develop my current relatively simple and inexpensive method of organizing hundreds of physical images.

You will need:

Black Memory Box

White #10 Envelopes

Label Maker (of your choice)

Sharpies (of your choice)

Computer Paper

The first step is the hardest

The first thing you’ll want to do is grab a stack of computer paper and a sharpie. On one single sheet of paper write 2019, then on another sheet write 2020, etc. Next, take your box of instant film and dump it all out into one pile. First, begin by placing all of the images you remember on top of the paper with the corresponding year. After some time, you should have stacks of images organized by year. This will leave you with a random pile of photos that you won’t quite remember the small details of when, who and where. Check your phone for images you may have taken of the polaroids to see dates and geotags. You can also check Facebook, Instagram, Photobucket, Tumblr, etc; any site that could possibly tell you more information about the remaining images.

After combing through social media and other websites for details, the next step is to categorize them by month using a business-sized envelope. Let’s say I came across an image that was taken in July 2019, I would write on an envelope “JULY 2019” and every picture taken during that month gets tossed in that envelope. This part could potentially be time-consuming depending on how many images you have to organize.

Now, what if you went on a trip to Vienna, Austria in June 2019, and want to keep your travel photos separate from the others? I would then create another envelope titled JUNE 2019 - AUSTRIA. If you run out of space in one envelope make another titled JUNE 2019 - AUSTRIA 2, etc.

Once you’ve completed that task, you’ll probably have a small pile of images that are left and you’re unsure of where they go. Make your best guess, put them into the envelopes, and let’s move forward!

LABELING

This is the most tedious but also THE most important part. One month and envelope at a time, dump the photos into a pile and fire up the label maker. Print out all of the labels first, then move to sticking them on. There are a few ways to structure the label name depending on the subject matter in the photo. Keep in mind that our goal is to keep this short and sweet because if you are labeling Instax Minis, you won’t have space for a long label strip.

My structure for naming is Month.Year // Location // Person or Thing. The image above is labeled 8.19 // Philadelphia, PA // CiraGreen. It is safe to say that this photo was taken in Philadelphia and its subject is the park Cira Green. Let’s say there was a person in the photo named Eliza. I would then choose to label that photo 8.19 // Philadelphia, PA // Eliza. If there were multiple people in the photo, it would look something like this: 8.19 // Philadelphia, PA // Eliza, Erin, Vince

What if it’s a large group of people, and you’re not trying to exceed a certain label length? Your options are to shorten the name of the city, or to only include the city or state/country. Example: 8.19 // Philly // Eliza, Erin, Vince, Lauren, Steve, Dani or 8.19 // PA // Eliza, Erin, Vince, Lauren, Steve, Dani

This process is going to take a WHILE. For me, it was a project over multiple days. Once this part is complete, organizing new images that you photograph will be a BREEZE.

ARCHIVING

Now the most satisfying part! You’ll want to layout at least 2 boxes to start out with. Take a pile of envelopes and fit them comfortably into the box. You don’t want them to be too snug, but also don’t want a lot of wiggle room. Once, you’ve maxed out the box, figure out your date range and make a label for the box. Example: MAY 18 - OCT 19 the next box could continue October or move on to November.

If you have multiple years in one box, another additional organizational option is to color code the tops of the envelopes by year. So 2019 can be orange, 2020 lavender, etc.

Keep in mind the images are best stored in a cool, dark place.

UPKEEP

Now that all the hard work is done, there will be occasional maintenance to keep everything organized. As you continue to take new photographs and place them into their monthly envelopes, every now and again you’ll want to take some time to print and stick labels. Personally, I do this about every 6 months to one year. If you’re able to do it more frequently, I very much encourage that!

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Thank you for reading!