Label Travel Photos while you are at home - for order, a travel book, or a family history book

Are all your photos labelled and captioned? I shall tell you why you should caption them. The day after my mother died, I sorted through a box of photos at my father's place for a photo to display on the dining table.


Who? What? Where? When? Why? My parents' wedding photo. Who? Netta and Albert. Where? London.

I wrote in small capital letters on the back margin: my mother's married name, her maiden name, and her date of birth, and date of death. That was in the year 2000. Now, in 2020, twenty years later, I have trouble remembering the date my mother was born and the date she died.

Those photo labels at the time were easy to write, when my father was alive. Which year did they get married? The date is in a book I self-published of my family history.

My father's box of photos mostly had no captions. He did not tell me much detail. He said about some of them, 'That was last year.' Others were labelled, that was 'France', or that was 'Venice'.

"Who were these people?" I asked my father.

"Those were our neighbours. ... A couple we met on holiday. ... Auntie Sarah." And so on.

When I finished, I went through the photos, again. I was able to add dates to places, and places to dates.

Sometimes I was able to pair up the pictures using landmarks. The picture of a church, 'I don't know where' was my father's comment on the background to a photo of my parents. In another picture I found a French signpost. France, Belgium, Switzerland or Canada or some French-speaking island?

Label Your Own Photos
When I left my father's flat and went home, I started the same exercise again with my own photos. I had tutted disapprovingly over the fact that my father had not labelled his own wedding photo. Of course, he knew it was himself and his wife and the year they married and where.

But my own photos of my wedding were not labelled! For the same reason.

At the time of my wedding to my husband, in the 1970s, both sets of parents shown in the group photos were alive. Now all four are gone. When I pass on, and the photos are passed on, my descendants will be trying to work out which woman was my mother and which was my husband's mother.

If you label your own photos with even only the most basic information, the name of the family members, the year, the country, that can trigger memories.

Why bother labelling the country? While you are all living in the same country, your country and your home town is obvious. Five years later, when you move house to another city, or go to work overseas, or emigrate, the identity of those old photos is less clear.

You might be able to check on dates with other sources such as who went where and when. A photo taken of South America has to be my husband's because I have not been there.
'Where?' I called.
He just told me, 'Argentina.'
'Which city?'
'Cordoba.'
Which year?
'1976. No 1978. I was invited to the World Cup of Soccer. I had written a paper on football attendance when I was a lecturer in statistics at Aberdeen university.'

I can check on the dates of the World Cup in Argentina to be sure which year.

But a photo of Mexico was my trip on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. My husband has never been to Mexico.

Signposts Opening Sets Of Photos
Nowadays I include the welcome sign as we drive into a city. I take a photo of the airport on arrival with the sign. I photograph signposts.

Romantic Road sign, Germany.

Self-captioning Photos
I often take self-captioning photos. I include the name of the hotel with a picture of the outside.

Why use labels?
When I worked for a photo agency, we were instructed to write on  labels and stick the photos on the back. Never write on the middle of the back of a photo, because the indentation of the pen or pencil would impact the front of the photo.

Now you can use your grouped photos for a blog on your travels, or a printed book.

Storage Systems
I visited the head of a photographic society in New Zealand. He had a simple dating system. He kept all photos in date order in numbered shoe boxes. January 1999 was followed by February 1999. To find photos of particular places, he used books of indexes. He kept one book in date order. The other was by country and City, alphabetically by country and within that alphabetically by city.

So his page on France, Paris, might have an entry: France, Paris, Notre Dame Cathedral, exterior, June 1999.
Another later entry would read: France, Paris, Notre Dame Cathedral, interior, altar, 2002.

He could use this system to pair up photos at different dates, his first photo of a place fifty years ago with the same place last year or this year.

Each photo had a number. It helps if you make notes of what you have photographed every evening on a trip.

Mystery Photo
I have a mystery photo of a wedding taken in what looks like a back garden in the East End of London. Was it from my mother's family, or from my aunty Pearl? If only they had written the bride's first name, I could have checked back in the family history and found the bride, the groom, and maybe many more people, and the location where they lived.

You could use a similar system with family photos. You can compile a family history.

I used a stock photo on the front of this book for the 90th birthday of my relative Pearl.

I prefer the family photo I used on this book of family history, which I wrote for my neighbours.

Alice and Loudon

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. (Not related to the actress.) See books and profiles on Lulu.com and  Amazon, such as Wedding Speeches & Toasts, Quick Quotations, Who Said What When. Also watch videos on YouTube.

How To Read Your Own Handwriting From Your Last Trip - and reach today's destination

Problem
Nothing more annoying than coming home from holiday with indecipherable notes. What was the name of the restaurant? How do you spell it? What did I say about it at the time?

Answers
Take self-captioning photos as soon as you reach a destination:
The welcome signpost of the city.
The hotel name on the door.
The menu in the restaurant.
Your new friend's business card.
Their name surreptitiously written on the corner of the paper table napkin.
If you can't spell their name, ask them to write it and keep the paper.
Label photos with names at the time or the same evening.

On the plane or the way home, go through hand-written notes and write any unclear words and proper names in capitals above the lower case handwriting.

As soon as possible, type up your handwritten notes.

Reading Handwriting
Join up the writing. Dot the 'i's and cross the 't's.

Keep a record of your own handwriting common confusions. For example, here are mine in alphabetical order:
First is what the letter looks like, then what I actually meant to write

h=k
i=t
l (looped) = u
l (short) = r
l = uncrossed t
m=n or ni or in with the dot missing
n=o
n=m
r=t
u=o
v=i
w=rs (yourself looks like yoivself)
backslash is r
forward slash is r or t

Able label used to have a guide to how you should write letters when ordering address labels. A common mistake was ambiguous letters and number, failure to distinguish 6 from L and so on.

1 I cross a seven, European style, to distinguish it from one.

2 I trained as a sub-editor, and in proof-reading, so I am used to underlining capital letters.

3 I write the surname in capitals. This is helpful in Asia where the surname comes first. I also write the surname in capitals. LEE Kuan Yew tells me that his surname is Lee. Lee is not his first name.

I often accidentally write phone numbers with the zero with a gap in the top so it could be a six. To avoid confusion, I go back over a number and check with the original and then make the number clearer.

4 I make a point of joining up a zero at the top.

5 I join up the six with a small circle at the bottom and a large semi-circle on top.

6 You could alternatively write a dot under a six and a line above a zero.

7 Nowadays I often find email addresses won't operate because you have typed in an elongated zero 0 instead of a wider capital O or vice versa. If website addresses don't link up, check your typing.

8 Writing slowly helps. I often write fast when I am not in a hurry and when it is more important to get the number right.

9 If you are rushing to get off the train and say goodbye, say the number out loud, keep repeating it to yourself, then check your writing after you have waved goodbye.

10 Copy handwritten notes on names, addresses and phone number into your phone immediately. Don't rely on hand-written notes in your pocket, often lost amidst other bits of paper. List the day's contacts from the agenda in your mobile phone.

I do this, mainly so that if I get lost en route, I have the name of the club president to phone and check directions.

Ring Tom
I once spent hours wondering who I meant by an instruction ring tom. Who was Tom? I did not know any Tom. Maybe it was Tim? I solved the mystery when I wrote the same thing again later in the day. Ring tom was an abbreviation for ring Ring tomorrow.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Author of How To Get Out Of The Mess You're In.