Now that you are set up and ready to start sifting through all your old photos, it's time to start thinking seriously about how you want to deal with your photos from now on so you don't have to do this again. (I promise I'll get to the nitty gritty organization part soon, but this is very important!) Do this now and then you won't end up a huge pile up of photos again 6 months from now.
Digital photos
If you take most of your pictures on a digital camera, you won't have to worry as much about organization as you would with prints, but you will still need to set of a system so you don't overwhelm yourself with 10,000 pictures at the end of the year. Every time you upload photos from your camera, go through them and rate them, say, 1-4 stars. When you are done, delete the 1 star and 2 star photos. (If you are breaking out in hives at the thought of deleting photos, see my upcoming post on letting go of photos.) This is key for digital photos, because people take WAY more digital photos than they ever would with film, so you end up with a LOT more pictures to work with. The delete key is scary, but it is really your best friend. (Kind of like Terminator 2?)
Now, if you can spare an extra few minutes, tag the photos with keywords, such as the location, event, and people depicted. This takes a few more minutes, but you will love yourself for doing this when you want to find something again in the future. Imagine that you'd like to make a photo album for a friend 2 years from now; all you'd have to do is type in that person's name and every photo in which they appear would be listed for you. How cool would that be??
Finally, and most importantly, BACK UP YOUR PHOTOS. I cannot emphasize this enough. If you are the kind of person who would save photo albums from a burning house, then you need to have a backup system. If you care at all about your photos there is no excuse not to do this. Get an external disk drive, burn CDs, burn DVDs, and/or back up to an online photo site. I personally like Kodak's site for ease of use, and I have heard very good things about Shutterfly and Flickr. The added advantage of uploading to online sites is that you can share your photos with anyone you like, and some even offer services for making professional-looking photo albums. Even if you use an online photo sharing site though, you should still back up your photos on some other media.
By the way, if you burn CDs or DVDs, do yourself a favor and make a contact sheet of the photos so you know what is on the CD/DVD.
Film and Prints
If you prefer the look and feel of print photos, then you will need to decide how you want to store them (albums, shoe boxes, scrapbooks, etc.). When you get your film back and you're going through the photos for the first time, immediately throw away the losers. If it would look stupid in a frame or a holiday card, then it's probably not worth saving since you probably have so many superior shots. Then immediately label your photos with a photo safe pen, noting the date, place, event and people in the picture. Sure you remember all the details today, but if you've ever gone to another room and forgotten why you went there, then you know that your memory is fallible.
If you like to show off your photos for a few weeks, then slip them into a temporary album to protect them from dust and fingerprints (and loss). Then when you're done, move them to their permanent home. If this sounds like too much trouble, then use album pages with holes for binding, and just move the pages to a permanent binder album when you're done showing it off. You should also move the negatives to special album pages so you can keep them with the prints in the album. Whatever you do, don't store your photos in the envelopes they give you at the drugstore; those are just made of regular paper and not intended for long term storage. If your photos are worth passing down to future generations, then make sure your storage is acid-free and photo-safe. I usually go with Exposures, but your local professional photo shop should be able to set you up also.
Oh, and if they ask you at the store, DON'T get doubles. Decide on your reprints after you see what you've got on the film. Otherwise it's just a waste of paper and chemicals, and it's doubling the amount of stuff in your home!
Next time, taming the photo paper tiger....