Pictures of nothing or out of focus

[Jsinjin]

Another one from my list of uOCPDw behaviors.   I thought this was just a quick but I'm learning these traits are part of a lot of people.   We have an archive of millions of photos dating back to first getting married and even the large crate of albums she received when her mother passed away.   95 percent or more are completely useless or have no value.   In the film days there was slightly more need to take better photos because of the cost.   You do still have we hire a few that have red eye or out of focus or some part of a wall captured and in that set of 10 pics there is one with the happy Christmas memory.   With the dawn of digital photos we have literally every single photo not only that our cameras take but anything that the collections of kids team mom's take and post to photostream websites.   Gig after gig of photos.    Life got worse when apple came up with their phones taking about 5-6 pictures per photo and you can choose one from the timeframe.    We keep every one!   One might think this could be indexed but there is no time for that.    We fill up iPhones, hard drives and external storage systems with archives of thousands of pictures.

The curious thing about this to me is that we never have albums or printed books.    I actually like these things and want them but my uOCPDw always insists she will do it.   And so the pile simply grows unmanaged and with enormous additions over the years.

I wonder about her fears of passing away in her 90's and the fact that no one will care about or remember this giant pile of non-indexed random images that have literally hundreds of similar pics for each moment in time.

[Whatthehey]

I totally understand where you are.

My stbxOCPDh would do that as well but he would also back up the photos, then save them again and again in different places.  Unindexed or marked.  So I could never really find the image I wanted but I knew was saved somewhere.  Had to be right?  But which of the 100 unmarked flash drives, cloud storage, computer bank or CD is the image saved on?   

[Call Me Cordelia]

I am terrible about doing anything with all the photos in my phone, too. I never thought it was a sign of mental illness, just I never find the time to deal with that digital mess when I have so many other physical messes in my face all the time.  It's just not a priority to me. It would be nice to have some physical photos around though, it's true. If I do get a good one I usually send it to someone or "heart" it. So I could find the good ones if I tried lol.

[11JB68]

My experience with my uOCPDh and photos was completely different. Just goes to show that things manifest differently for different people.
He went through a long phase where he needed to organize our many photos. Of course I had to participate in this. We also had to buy lots of photo albums. There was a lot of measuring, and a lot of ranking and comparing of different sizes and styles of photo albums. The photos were organized, reorganized, reorganized again and again. And of course now *I* have NO idea how to find any particular photo because it is HIS org system that only makes sense to him. So now I have to ask him if I'm looking for a photo. It was exhausting.

[SparkStillLit]

We're the massive messes of photos. I've a few albums I put together, and a few random folders on my computer.
Photos are another "project" he's always going to get to, but one with super low priority. There is home maintenance that's needed doing for years and years.

[1footouttadefog]

Thoughts that come to mind:

Procrastinators are often perfectionists at heart.  They want to find time to tackle these projects and to do it perfectly.  In the mean time they struggle for control and avoid others taking over.

The collection is hoarding is temporary until they can do the job perfectly as only they can do.

Add some OCD and wow...

[SparkStillLit]

Oh my STARS!!!!! That is H EXACTLY!!! And not letting anyone else do it, he blows a gasket if I get frustrated and call in someone else to do things. He either thinks they did them "half assed" and/or it points up that he did not do them at all, and it makes him look bad (he thinks). Let the goat rodeo begin.....
I rarely call people in because the resulting blowups get bigger. It's like allergies. The subsequent reactions get worse.