April Activities #1 – 5

Here are some fun and useful activities you can do with your photo and video collection while we are staying safe at home. Have fun!

1. Document Your Experience

The events around us are unprecedented and we are living through a time that will be captured by history. Someday your family will be asking you “What was it like to live through the pandemic?” Document your experiences while we are all staying home and staying safe. Take 5 or 6 pictures a day to record what is happening for you. Here are some ideas:

  • Where you are working
  • Your kids homeschooling
  • What you regularly do during the day
  • Any places you go
  • What its like there (empty streets, empty shelves, etc)
  • How you entertain yourself
  • How you entertain your family
  • Something new you’ve learned
  • The view from your window
  • Your kids playing
  • Family game night
  • Online games you’re playing
  • Video conferences
  • Watch parties
  • Movies you’re watching
  • Shows you’re bingeing
  • Music you’re listening to
  • Online books you’re reading or listening to
  • Podcasts you’ve discovered
  • Computer frustrations
  • Virtual lessons
  • Outside of buildings or homes of loved ones
  • Neighbours on their porches as you walk by
  • An example of social distancing
  • Markings on the floor at the grocery store
  • Recipes you’ve tried
  • Try to capture the good things that are happening for you
  • Capture the opportunity to spend more time with your family
  • Snuggling with your pet
  • Signs of spring
  • How you are helping or any volunteer opportunities you can participate in
  • Things you are missing
  • Things you are looking forward to
  • Things that might change for you based on this experience

Add notes to these pictures in their metadata fields (comments) so you will remember the details and be able to share this story.

It would also be great to capture this experience from your child’s point of view. Let them take a few pictures each day capturing their experience. Ask them to tell you the stories from their pictures and write it down for them in the metadata. They will be glad you captured this experience for them too.

2. Clean out your Camera Roll ?

The next time you’re scrolling through social media hop over to your camera roll. It will make you happier and if you spend some time scrolling through here you can clean out all those shots that are just taking up memory. Remember that if you sync to your cloud backup the systems work to create an exact copy of each other so if you delete a picture on your phone it will delete from your cloud storage too. Double check how your backups work before deleting the awesome pictures. But that shot of the floor? That can go!

3. Photography Fun

Use your camera to entertain your kids and support their learning. These can be fun exercises for teens and adults too!

  1. Colour of the day – take 5-6 photographs of something that is your colour of the day
  2. Letter of the day – take 5-6 photographs of something that begins with your letter of the day
  3. Shape of the day – take 5-6 photographs of something shaped like a triangle (square, circle, rectangle, hexagon, cylinder, cube)
  4. Alphabet Hunt – take pictures of things that begin with each letter of the alphabet
  5. Scavenger Hunt – make a list of things for kids to find and photograph
  6. Signs of Spring – use 10 photos to capture the signs of spring
  7. Favourites – photograph your favourite things – stuffies, books, toys, shows, sports, food
  8. Pets – use 10 photos to capture your pet’s personality
  9. People – see if your kids can take a good portrait – have them think about lighting, background, position of subject, let them be in charge
  10. Spell Your Name – explore your home and yard and find images that spell the letters in your name – for instance a knot in the wood in your fence might look like an “O”. You may have baseboard that makes an “L”. Get creative.
  11. Capture a mood – take photographs that evoke a mood – let older kids and teens be creative, direct little kids to take pictures of something that makes them feel happy, sad, angry, frustrated, lonely, loved, safe.

4. Send a Photo Gift

Use a favourite photo to create a gift for someone you love. Make them a mug, a pillow, a key ring, jewelery, mouse pads, plaques, puzzles – there are lots of items to choose from. Send it to someone you can’t spend time with right now. Google photo gifts for ideas or check out the options on Shutterfly. If you know someone who does this work locally please share their contact information below.

5. Create your Digital Photo Hub

This is a good time to tame the chaos in your digital photo collection. The first step is to gather all your photos and videos to one place. We call this your digital photo hub. Make sure you move those files of pictures to your hub – copying them only creates another set of duplicates. Look in your files, emails and downloads. Systematically search small areas of your computer for .jpg, .png, .gif, .jpeg, .tiff, .raw, .heic to hunt down pictures. Search .mp4, .mov, .mpeg, .3gp, .avi, .flv, .wmv to find videos. If you search your entire computer be prepared for a long search. If I find a folder of pictures I like to move the entire folder to my digital photo hub – often there are clues in the name of the folder or how the pictures have been stored together to help you organize them later. Check out the March 2019 Newsletter for more information about creating a digital photo hub: March 2019 Newsletter