I’m a photo fanatic. I have thousands of photos from over the years. Thousands. And for years I did absolutely nothing with them.

They just sat there. In my camera roll. On old laptops. In boxes in the closet. On USB drives I had to dig through three junk drawers to find.

Meanwhile, I was forgetting things that actually happened in my life. Real things. Important things. Funny things. And then I'd stumble across a photo and realize that I had completely forgot about that moment.

It didn’t take long for me to realize a hard truth. If I didn't have my photos, a lot of those memories would just be gone. Forever.

As I started learning more about protecting my photos, I learned about photo management. And that led me to become a certified photo manager. Not because I had it all together. But because I didn't. And I figured a lot of other women didn't either.

Here's what I know about women like me, navigating midlife:

We are not our mothers' midlife.

When I was growing up, forty was "over the hill". Midlife looked like the Golden Girls. No offense to the Golden Girls. I love them! But that is not us.

We are out here staying active, building things, starting over, reinventing ourselves, and refusing to let age define what's possible.

And if we're being really honest, some of us are also quietly realizing we don't have it as figured out as we thought we would by now.

We thought we'd feel more settled. More certain. Like we'd finally arrived somewhere.

Instead we're asking questions we didn't expect to still be asking.

Some of us got redirected. Some of us woke up one day and thought, “Wait. Is this it? Is this really how I want the rest of my life to look?”

Here's what's different about us versus every generation of women before us:

We know we have 20, 30, maybe 40 years ahead of us. And we are not going out without making them count.

Some women get that information and wither. But I want it to fuel me. And I want to help fuel you.

So what does any of this have to do with photos?

Everything. Your photos are not just clutter. They are not just memories.

They are your story.

And when you actually sit down with your story, really sit with it, something shifts.

You start to see what you've lived. What you've survived. What you've built and loved and lost and learned. You start to remember who you were before life got loud.

And you start to ask, “Okay. Who do I want to be next?”

Your photos are the starting point for all of it.

Recollection Photos is for women who are done being passive about their memories - and their lives.

Here you'll find practical help for organizing and preserving your photos, ideas for actually doing something meaningful with them…photo books, projects, gifts, memoir, legacy, and honest conversation about this season of life we're all navigating together.

I'm a certified photo manager. I'm also a woman in her early 50s figuring out her own next chapter in real time.

I don't have it all figured out.

I'm on this journey too.

And I'm really glad you're here.

— Shelley