Jan. 3, 2020Declutter Day 2.
Read why I didn't do this one HERE

"Back-up all of the pictures that live on your phone and then delete them from your phone."

So... I'm not going to do this one today. For a couple reasons. Mostly because it gives me major anxiety to delete ANY of my photos. But also because I've actually been doing a pretty good job of doing this for the past year or so. Every month, I have been dumping all my photos and videos from my phone onto my computer, then backing them up to an external drive. I do this for photos that I take with my cameras, too. 

Photos are VERY important to me. 

I began taking photos back in the days of film. I worked at camera stores for nearly 10 years, then worked for a camera manufacturer as a marketing rep. I had a darkroom setup in several of the homes I rented during my early 20s. l shot nearly 40 rolls of film when I travelled through Australia. I thought of myself as a professional photographer for a hot minute, and sold my services shooting weddings and portraits. I worked for a preschool portrait company, capturing the smiles and giggles of littles in daycares and preschools. I was the "house photographer" for a small concert venue in L.A. capturing legends such as Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, The Cranberries, Tower of Power, and Tenacious D. I had my own column on a digital news source and gained access to photograph bands such as Sonic Youth, Matisyahu, Flogging Molly, and Metric. After having Lil' G and loving the images captured by my doula as I gave birth, I wanted to be a birth photographer, but I haven't been able to make that work yet.

I have ALWAYS been particular about how to save my images. When I moved cross country, 1/4 of the trunk of my Jetta was taken up by my photo albums and boxes of slides and negatives.  I now have boxes of CDs and DVDs with thousands of images saved to them, not to mention several external hard drives. I am also one of those weirdos who prints photos and frames them to hang up or puts them in albums and scrapbooks. Prints are also really important, because one day, all the digital files we use today will be obsolete and entire generations of photos will be gone. But, prints will still be around.

All that to say, today, instead of decluttering my phone of photos, I will, instead, be putting Christmas away for the year.