Location, location, location.
Do your photos have a place to go with that date?
I used to recall my trips, vacations and visits by date. The once-in-a-lifetime reunion with all my cousins and extended family at the old beach cabin. A sailing regatta on Block Island. That epic gala party at the Guggenheim Museum. Road trips. A detour to see an old college friend. Showing the sites to my Mom. Great memories all.
I don't remember the exact dates so much anymore. There are so many, after all, and time is such an artificial marker. It has no meaning without what came before and what followed. It's a lot to think through when you just want to find a photo.
But I do remember the places. And I think that for photo organizing a location trumps a time stamp almost every day.
GPS location tagging on iPhone photos is a world class gift and I can tell you that it's saved me more than once from minutes of swiping through years of pictures to find the one I want. When I show the Places tab in Apple Photos to my clients, and teach them how to use it, I swear that I see tears of joy.
The thing is that when you have old scans or digital camera photos, those coordinates don't exist. You have to add them to those files yourself.
Fortunately, it's pretty easy.
First, you need to go to Apple Maps on your Mac and find the location of the photo. It doesn't have to be exact.
Next, you left-click and hold to mark the location and bring up the location info which includes - big surprise - the GPS coordinates of the location.
Then click on the ellipsis (three dots) of the info panel and you will get a choice to Copy Coordinates.
Pull up the photo(s) where you want to add the location, and open the Info palette.
Then paste the coordinates into the location field at the bottom of the palette.
Now when you go to the Places tab in Photos, you can zoom in on the map to see what photos you have, based on your location tags. It's easy to find all the photos you have from that place as well as see a history of photos from those locations over time. Perfect for a summer home retrospective.
Then you can worry about the dates.
