Football Frenzy

It's fall so at our house, that means football rules. Our son has played football since he was five years old, but this was our first official year of high school football and we were ready because practice started in August. I remember one very warm afternoon waiting in the parking lot for him to finish and listening to the band practicing.  There's just something about the band's drum line and football - the two seem to go hand-in-hand.  I was giddy with the anticipation of the first game!

My Football Hero!

Our almost-six-feet-tall, 200 pound freshman was pulled up to play JV football so our world was rocked a little more than expected, and going in to a brand new school not knowing anyone, it was an adjustment for him and us!  He did great, though, and the team had a great year (6 and 3).  Of course, I had my camera at all the games and I think I averaged about 250 pictures a game.  Considering there were 9 games in the season (plus numerous scrimmages), I have well over 1,200 images!  Thank goodness I have the dates of each picture because seriously - they all look alike.  1,200+ images of my son and his teammates running this way, running that way, carry the ball, kicking the ball, making a tackle...do I really need to have 1,200+ images of the same thing over and over and over?  I could, but that would not be a very interesting photo album, would it? Plus it doesn't make sense to spend all that money printing them either individually or in scrapbook pages.

District Champions

So what's a shutter snapping, photo addict like me to do in a situation like this? The answer:  make friends with the "DELETE" button.  This has been so difficult for me because I take pictures with a purpose, pictures that mean something to me. There's my kid in it, for crying out loud and if I delete it, that's like throwing away my child! Do you ever feel that way, too? Get over it, Jackie! Deleting an image does NOT throw away your child. I'll have the best images saved, printed and I'm learning to delete by following these steps:

1.  Go through and get rid of the blurry, out-of-focus images. Even if it was the best play of the game...no one enjoys looking at a picture that doesn't look good. Period. Let it go.

2.  Get rid of duplicates. Is my son standing in formation before the ball is in play?  Sure, I think he looks good standing there, but do I really need 100 pictures of him like that? No! Choose 5 that are the best and delete the rest! Whoa. That's a darn good mantra:  choose 5 that are the best and delete the rest!

3.  Let's take it game by game (day by day, event by event or however you have your photos organized) and choose from each the 5 that are the best and delete the rest! Let's say that I had my continuous shooting going on my camera and I have 10 images that show second by second an awesome play. I said it was a mantra, remember? It's not the law so I can bend a little here and there.  Images like that would make an excellent collage on a page. But I have to keep that to just 1 or 2 per album and remember the mantra for the rest.

I am the queen of keeping it all so I understand how difficult it can be to delete images, but let's face it.  No one wants to sit and look through albums filled with thousands of pictures. A single picture can tell an entire story so of course, 45 images from the 9 games will make a memory book filled with many stories and great memories to last a life time!

Most importantly, I want my son to be able to look back fondly on his first year of high school football and have an album that will make him smile for many, many years to come.