Memory Keeping Inspiration | Photo Journal of Seaside, Florida on the Emerald Coast
Memory keeping is an on going project for me. It's a full circle of projects I want to complete, albums I want to have printed, and stories I want to tell. Some of these "projects" have been underway for several months or even years, but what matters most to me is that I don't forget about them and that I continue to work on them... Even if it is only a little at a time.
Before we went on our end-of-summer vacation this year, I contemplated how I was going to document this trip. In fact, I even asked on Instagram what ways some of you enjoy documenting trips. I received some fantastic ideas like bringing along a small "kit" of supplies or packing journaling cards to make notes on. But none of it really felt like it would "fit" me and my plans for vacation.
You see, when I'm on vacation, I like to wake early, stay up late, and cram as much adventure in as I possibly can. So finding time to sit down and actually scrapbook wasn't going to be be plausible. Instead, I thought about what I wanted to look back on. What made the vacation so special...
For me, vacation is special because it means time to relax and rejuvenate, full days to spend with my husband where I don't have to share him, and a chance to explore some place new. Keeping that in mind, I knew that the way I chose to document our trip needed to be flexible and low key. I didn't want to spend so much time documenting the trip that I'd miss out on taking the trip! After all, memories mean nothing if we miss out on creating them.
I decided to bring my DSLR camera and take photos to tell the story. I shot a lot of video also with our iPhones and my DSLR. I made a few notes here and there about the names of places we ate, visited, and what days it was on. When I got home, I wrote some memories down but didn't spend hours creating journaling. Rather, I let my photos do the telling.
I recently finished sorting through my hundreds of photos and narrowed down the ones that will end up in my printed album. I thought I would share some of them below...
Looking back on my decision of how I'd document the trip, I'm really glad I chose to focus on taking pictures and living in the moment rather than document as we traveled. After all, that's the beauty of memory keeping. I don't have to be tied down to do things a certain way. I can jump from a Project Life scrapbook to a digital album to a photo journal. Regardless of how I do it, the important thing is that I DO IT!
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An excerpt from my photo journal:
