Sometimes great ideas come to me for products that I wish were on the market. If I thinking about it, I write these ideas down in the notebook that I carry around with me. If I am not thinking, I forget about my ideas.
Today, I knew that I wanted to write a blog post, but I didn’t know what to write about. I thought perhaps that it was time that I shared one of my recent ideas with you.
Perhaps this is a dangerous post, because in it I will be putting some of my product ideas into print. However, completing the activities in the Artist’s Way, taught me that I cannot try and cap the flow of creativity that comes out of my brain. If my brain tells me this is what I need to write about right now, then I need to write about it. Creativity is a steam or geyser not a spigot.
Anyway, here is one of my recent ideas:
Biodegradable photographs: Here is a product that I have been thinking about lately because I want to share family photos in a way that is personal and novel. I would like a to invent a line of biodegradable pictures.
Here is the inspiration for this ideas. Sometimes an event happens and you take pictures. Of course, you can post them to social media, but not everyone uses social media and sometimes you are reluctant to share too much on social media. You could always email your pictures to the people who would enjoy them, but sometimes that requires making the file size smaller and even then you might only be able to send a few pictures in one email. It can become cumbersome if you are trying to send several different people pictures and you want to send each person a personalized assortment of pictures.
A traditional solution could be having your pictures made into prints and distributing them to the people who would enjoy them. This works great, it has worked great for a long time, but the only problem is that sometimes I feel bad about giving other people photographs that they will ultimately have to end of storing.
Also sometimes what ends up happening is that when a family member passes away and you are left with all of their pictures. Then there is the conundrum of whether you should take photos home to your house where you might just end up storing them or if you should throw them away and this can be a hard decision to make.
So this is where I went into a research rabbit hole.
I do love the biodegradable cards that people send out during the holidays in December. They are a nice way to enjoy picture, without the responsibility (intentional or unintentional) to keep them around, which is what I feel encounter photo paper. Most years, my family and I send a few of those out. The drawback though, is that they get expensive if you want to send them out more than once a year. It is also hard to get them made if you just want to share a few of them with friends and family after an event.
Possibly the solution to my idea is that the pictures could be printed onto seed paper. Then when the person is done looking at the picture they could plant it outside and a plant will grow. I thought that I was original when concocted this idea, but I looked into it and this is something that you could have done. However, the products that I encountered are mostly for companies to make promotional items. It isn’t really designed for the average consumer who is looking to make biodegradable picture cards.
That being said, if you are looking to send out seed paper Christmas cards without your families photo here is a link to a website that sells those. You can even submit your own design so if you are crafty, perhps you could send out your family photo that way.
I don’t know what my solution will be this year for sending out Christmas cards or sharing photos with friends and family. I guess I will decided sometime soon.
Last year, I read an article in New York Times that advocated for a system of photo organization where you keep only a few pictures from each year. They point out that is you choose to save (10) photos a year, it blooms to 800 pictures if you live to be 80. Then you store your choices in archival boxes with the idea that you should take your picture out and display them frequently. Having fewer pictures allows you to enjoy the pictures that you do have more, this theory argues.
I like this philosophy but it is hard to do in practice.
What is your photo philosophy? Do you like to idea of keeping lots and lots of pictures? Is it hard for you to throw them away?
