If you’re a mum of young kids, you’ve probably struggled with trying to choose your favourite family photos. Your camera roll is probably a living, breathing record of your life: sticky hands, beach days, daycare drop-offs, first rides, birthdays, the ordinary everyday moments you never want to forget.

And yet… actually doing something with those photos can feel impossible.

This is Part Two in my short memory-keeping + photo organisation series (from a family photographer in Sydney who deeply understands how fast these seasons move). The goal is to help you get your beautiful memories off your phone and into your real life.

If you started folders after Part One—amazing. If you haven’t, you’re still in the right place. Starting is always the hardest part.

Today we tackle the most practical (and often the most paralysing) step: Choosing your favourites.

“I love all of them. How do I choose my favourites?”

I hear this all the time: “I love all of them. I don’t know how to choose. It overwhelms me so I just… give up.”

Firstly, I feel it too. But also, I’d love to offer reframe that changes everything –

Loving all your photos isn’t the problem. Trying to choose favourites without a purpose in miLoving all of your photos is not the problem. The problem is not having a destination in mind when you sit down to choose. Because choosing “my favourites” from ten thousand photos is an impossible task. But choosing “what goes on the wall” or “what goes in this year’s album”  is a distinct question, and suddenly the field narrows in a way that makes the whole thing feel doable.

So let’s move forward with this approach: Favourites with a purpose.

How to select and save favourites

You don’t need special software to begin.

In my professional work, I use either a star/colour tagging system to filter down my favourites and a quick check tells me the universal ‘heart’ functionality exists within the Photos app on both Mac and PC systems. 

I would suggest popping a heart on your favourites as you review your images, and if you can, creating a “Smart Album” or filter within your favourites so you can view and collate these together via timeframes too. I’ve screenshot how you could do this here (Photos app on Mac):

PART 1: Choosing photos for your wall

While I’m trying to be the expert here, I’ll also be the first to admit that I know full well the analysis paralysis of choosing photos for your wall.  The perfectionist in me doesn’t want to get it wrong.  But then I catch myself visiting friends’ homes and lingering over the memories they’ve decided to frame on their walls and I’m reminded that there is no right or wrong here.  There is only the feeling that the image or the moment holds for you – personally.  Something deeper.  A nostalgia. A connection that invites you to linger like I do, holding onto that pause for just a moment more.

For the purpose of this series though, here’s my humble two cents:

• Think of the frames on your wall as little time portals into places and seasons that you would love to be reminded of.  A mix of various ages and stages of life.

• Mix in images of your own parents and grandparents, representations of family in all its depth and breadth and shapes and forms.

• Remember that these are the images that your children will walk past every single day, seared into their subconscious, and forever reminding them that they are a part of your family. That they belong, That they are loved. That they are worth remembering.

• A simple eyes-to-the-camera portrait in beautiful light will always be precious.  A family holiday moment that captures time and place you would all love to revisit is high on my list of things I love to see framed.

• Feel free to mix in professional family portraits alongside the family holiday snaps. Closer portraits, wider landscapes. Moments where you can see the love. Mix in your kids artwork and little love notes while you’re there too, fingerprints of life and love and growing up in the sweetest of ways.

• Oh, and don’t forget to try and represent all your kids as evenly as possible (or you’ll get some pretty speedy feedback I’m sure!)

Finally, and maybe most importantly – nothing has to be permanent, so don’t overthink it.  If you frame something and it doesn’t quite work, that’s ok – replace it with another.  And as the years go on, add and update as life brings you all its beauty and lessons and joys. You can swap frames as your kids grow and your seasons change.

PART 2: Choosing photos for your yearly family album

Luckily for both you and me, your album can hold a much wider story than your wall, with each chapter being a season or year to fall into and revisit whenever we desire (and in my opinion the best kind of investment that grows exponentially with time).

The goal for your album (at least the annual ones that sit on my shelves) is not that every image has to look professional or perfect, but simply evidence of memories you want to hold onto, the milestones and in-betweens of the joys and glimmers of this one beautiful life you’re all navigating together. 

So yes – I mix my own fancy camera photos with phone photos (see snippets below), I mix film and digital, I also sometimes mix photos I have had taken professionally through these albums too.  My hope for these pages is that they hold the images that remind us what life was actually like, that the represent the faces of the ones we love, the holidays and highlights, but also snippets of the rhythm and routine that also filled our days.

My tip would be to try and keep a good variety and mix of the type of images you hold through your album. So balance out group photos with detail shots and open landscapes. Pair looking at the camera portraits with documentary moments, full body shots with closer crops.  I’ve pulled a couple of pages from a recent album build to try and show you what I mean here:

So as you can see I am truly no album purist, and hopefully that helps you feel freer about this entire process too. Favourites are selected somewhat instinctively from how they make me feel and who I want to represent (at least on the first cull), and further curated as the images are pieced together to ensure an overall balance leaning more towards relational connection and story, and hopefully a little less towards scrapbook.

The 3-pass method: choose favourites quickly (even if you’re busy)

Pass 1: Heart anything that makes you feel something

Move fast. Don’t overthink. Don’t try to curate as you go. Just heart the photos that stop you mid-scroll.

Pass 2: Only review favourites — then halve them

From your favourites pool, do a second pass.

For each event (birthday, beach day, park play, holiday), aim to cut the number by choosing the photos that:

• best tell the story
• best represent the people you want to remember

If you need to, repeat this step once more a week later…you’ll be surprised at how much more clarity you’ll have by spending a little time away.

Pass 3: Aim for 150–200 photos for an annual family album

AFor a yearly family album, I try to aim for around 200 photos which will naturally cull down as they are put into a design. So let’s try and get it under 150-200 if you can. Save these into your “Best Of” or “2025 Family Album Selections” folder, or into a shared album if you are pooling photos with your partner. You now have a shortlist –  and that shortlist is the only thing you’ll need for Part Three!

Next time we’ll dive into where to actually make your album, and options for printing your photos, so you can finally enjoy the fruits of your labour!

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A note from my work as a Sydney family photographer

Dear friend – everything we have talked about so far in this series; the organising, the choosing, the getting your memories off a drive and into something real, is something I think about with every single family I photograph.

My work sits somewhere between documentary and portrait. Always seeking connection and feeling. Always trying to capture not just what you looked like, but what this particular season of your life actually felt like. The people in your frame. The love that is interconnected and everywhere if you know where to look.

And because I never want your images to end up gathering digital dust waiting for someday, beautiful prints and albums are something I offer alongside every session with me. Designed with your images, and delivered to your door for your family to enjoy forever.

If that sounds like something you’d really love right now – please reach out. I would love to chat 💖.