Holidays with my family in Massachusetts have always meant family tradition: cooking and sharing meals together, kids tearing open gifts under the tree, and that crazy family basketball game outside in the cold on Christmas day. But now my fiancee and I live in Seattle, and my brother and his wife live in San Francisco. We don't always make it back to Massachusetts for the holidays, and I really miss the family fun.
While it's difficult to be away from my family during the holidays, with online photo albums we can share the traditions even when we're 3,000 miles apart. We simply upload our digital pictures to an album right from our computer. We can see each other's pictures just minutes after they're posted. So even when we're in Seattle, my fiancee and I get to see online photos of the family traditions in Massachusetts almost as they happen: Mom as she prepares her famous pies, my niece as she opens her gifts from us, and my dad as he tries for his classic three-point shot. And they get to see us create our own traditions with the photos we post from Seattle.
Even if you don't own a digital camera, you can still create online photo albums. Just take your film to a photo processor and ask for your pictures to be put on CD. The CD stores digital versions of your pictures so that you can see them on a computer. From the CD, you upload them to an online album.
Creative ideas
With some thought and creativity, you can put together fun and interesting online photo albums. Here are some album ideas to get you started:
- Tell a story A great way to document a special event is to take a series of photos that tell a story. For example, to document a holiday trip to Grandma's, start with a shot of her house from the outside, followed by a close-up of the front door and homemade wreath, and then a shot of grandma opening the door to welcome everyone. Add captions to your sequence to narrate the story.
- Office party Taking a camera to the office party can be a lot of fun?and you'll be surprised what people do in front of a camera. Seeing your boss with fuzzy antlers at the holiday party is funny, and it'll be even funnier when you publish a picture of it in an online photo album.
- Child's-eye view Kids see the world differently than adults do, and it can be a fun challenge to capture the awe and innocence of a child's perspective. For a children's holiday theme, get low to the ground for a kid's view of the Christmas tree, a pile of gifts, and the stockings hung up and enticingly out of reach.
Photo album tips
Here are some tips to help make your online photo albums a success:
- Set up albums with different themes You can use a theme for each album. For example, one album for a family holiday, one album for a graduation, and so on.
- Create a special album for high-resolution images Do you plan on ordering prints, T-shirts, and other gifts made from your best photos? You may want to put those images in a separate album designated for prints. You can regularly update or swap out the high-resolution images with your latest "keepers."
- Get creative Take some creative and experimental shots: Get down on the ground and take pictures from a low angle, use filters on your camera lens, and take a series of pictures with your camera's burst mode. If you've got a digital camera, shoot away?you can always delete the images you don't like. Use an image-editing program, to add effects like painting, speech bubbles, and borders to your pictures.
- Don't wait to publish your pictures Publishing on the Web is instantaneous. No one has to wait for the postal system or a personal visit. Shoot your pictures, and have your album on your Web site minutes later.