Apple Photos on Vacation - Part 2
HOW TO HAND OFF YOUR PHOTOS
In Part 1 we laid the groundwork for your travel photo collection project. You’ve named a Director to be the librarian and cheerleader, and the Camerapeople - ideally 2-4 others - who will look for and capture moments that document both the main arc of the vacation and the random details that are often overlooked. What they call “B-Roll” in the movies. Cityscapes, farmer’s market scenes, architectural details, morning light in the kitchen, local color. Shots that add context and character to the experience.
Truth is, we all do this anyway to some degree or other, so it’s not like you’re asking someone to be “the” photographer with a weight of responsibility intruding on their time. It’s more about an extra shot here and there to be sure all travelers are included in the final collection and that there’s a rich pool of photos (and videos) to draw on for the final project, whatever that may be.
The handoff - images from Camerapeople to Director - can be a daily drop or pre-departure task depending on the group vibe, but it’s a good idea to do the sharing when together for a couple reasons.
First, a week or two of photography can add up. A lot of images - maybe with video - can take up a lot of space. AirDrop is the easiest and fastest way to share those images quickly. You can do it in small batches (like daily) and the selection and transfer goes quickly. The Director can organize into Albums and do some pre-edits as they go while everyone else is saved the task of selecting and sending when they get home.
Second, sharing photos after the fact can be complicated for tech-challenged participants. The next best transfer option is using iCloud Links, which can be slightly confusing for a first-timer. Then the fall back is to send photos in batches via Messages or Email which are problematic for large numbers of images.
But stuff happens, and it is a vacation after all, so here are the setups for both good options.
AirDrop
AirDrop requires that Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are on and that you have AirDrop enabled in Settings. It is built into every Apple device and, when enabled, shows up as an option in your Share menu. Just select your photos, tap the Share icon, and look for the Director’s device to pop up as a destination. You can do it having a cold beer on the patio or as the dummy playing bridge. Quick and easy. You can also just touch the top of your photo to theirs. The transfer is automatic, fast, and entertaining. You get a little light show in the process.
iCloud Links
Next best option is iCloud Links. This requires an iCloud account, as the name implies, and a Wi-Fi connection to sync your photos/videos and create the Link. You are basically telling your iCloud Photos Library to make a temporary gallery of your selections and create a URL to share. You just tap and Paste to add the URL to a Message, Text, or Email and the recipient can view the online gallery of images and download some or all to add to their own Library. The Gallery stays live for 30 days and can hold up to 1000 images. And you aren’t clogging up someone’s InBox.
iCloud Links, of course, don’t require the face-to-face closeness of AirDrop which means that it’s a great after-the-fact solution to hand of vacation photos to the Director.
Both AirDrop and iCloud Links stand out as image transfer choices because they hand off the full-sized images you took and optionally include the Location, metadata, and editing history of the images. Valuable stuff for building a project. Attaching photos to a Message or Email will often strip out helpful metadata and reduce the quality of the images.
If you are the Director, you are going to be adding all these photos - including your own - to your Photos Library. As you receive photos from your Camerapeople you will see them as separate groups in Imports, where you can select and route them to an Album. That’s it.
Folders and Albums
I recommend making a folder for the vacation, containing albums for each contributor. This is a quick and easy way to answer the inevitable question of who took which shot. So as the photos land in your Photos Library, just select and add them to the appropriate Album.
This is also a lifesaver when the project is complete and you want to pare down your Library to your own photos again. Or share the whole collection with the group. You can create a combined Gallery with iCloud Links. You can export everything to a Folder on iCloud Drive or elsewhere. You can just select and delete them from your collection.
Also, remember that an image can live in multiple albums. You can begin culling for that book or slideshow by creating another Album for selects.
As the Director, you might also want to keep notes about the experience and a great way to do that is with the Journal App.
Journal App
Journal comes on every iPhone and it’s a handy way to add quick comments, audio, reference photos, and location info in a daily trail. The little stuff that adds color to the story you’re creating.
Watch for Part 3 - The Project
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