It’s National Parks Week (April 22 – 30, 2023) – one of our favorite weeks here at Photographic Memories. The U.S. national parks are a true treasure of this country, and during the pandemic they’ve proven their value as places that we could travel, be with family and friends, immerse ourselves in nature and exercise all those walking muscles we’ve developed!
A few fun facts about our national parks:
- In 2022, the national parks received 312 million recreation visits – we hope you were one of them
- There are 424 national park sites, with sites in every state and territory. 63 sites have the words “National Park” in their names, while the others are historic sites, monuments, recreation areas and seashores.
- California has the most national parks (lucky them!)
- According to the National Park Service, 8 parks receive over 25% of visitors
- Yellowstone is the only park located in 3 different states
Here at Photographic Memories, we think we’ve been to 22 of the 63 National Parks. So we have some more traveling to do. Along the way, we’ve collected (quite) a few pictures of scenery and mountains. So many, in fact, that sometimes we can’t tell them apart. Anyone else having this issue? And we really believe that our national parks deserve a little more respect than that. So in honor of our national parks, here are a few tips to clean up and keep track of your scenery pictures:
- If you have a camera or phone with GPS, turn it on. That will tag your photo with location data when you go back to it – very helpful for sorting out which mountaintop belongs where!
- While you’re at it, make sure that the date on your camera is also correct (phones should automatically register the correct date). When you download your photos from that SD card in your camera, they will sort themselves by date. Now you just have to remember if that epic trip to Colorado was in 2016 or 2017.
- At the end of the day, do a quick run-through of your photos and delete the awful ones – blurry, kids making faces, pictures of your feet – you’ll know it when you see it. You don’t have to get too fussy, just get the bad ones off your camera roll.
- Back at your hotel or when you return from your trip, put all the trip photos into one album for sorting later. Albums are available in Apple Photos, Google Photos, Amazon Photos, SmugMug, Forever and Mylio (some of our favorite photo library managers).
The hard part, of course, happens when you get home and need to choose which are the best scenery pictures. Keep in mind, years from now you will want to remember the people who traveled with you, and will only need a few scenery pictures (I know, I know – easier said than done). But at least you’ve already culled the awful pics, and you can work on choosing the best pictures from that album you created. You’re already on your way to a more organized photo library.
And if it all seems too much – call your favorite photo manager (that would be us). We’re always happy to make the tough decisions for you!
Happy National Park Week – let’s get out there!
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