Collecting celebration of life photos, gently

Where are the photos, and how do you ask for them?

Most of the photographs that matter are not in the family’s albums. They are on other people’s phones: the holiday twenty years ago, the work leaving do, the grandchild on their knee last Christmas. Some are prints in a drawer that nobody has thought to scan. The kindest thing you can do is make it easy for people to give them to you, without asking them to learn anything new at a time like this.

Send the link once, with the details people are already reading: the date, the place, the words about the day. A line is enough. For example:

That last sentence matters more than it looks. Screenshots, scans and photos of printed photos all upload just as new ones do, so an aunt without a scanner can photograph a print on the kitchen table and send it in a moment. See What kinds of photo and video can I upload?

How do you set up a place for the photos?

Create the event on the Memorial / Remembrance template. It changes the words people see throughout, so nothing reads like a party, and the guestbook becomes the Book of Memories. There is no scavenger hunt on a memorial, no game and no leaderboard. Add a short welcome message in your own words; a sentence about who you are remembering is plenty. See How do I create an event?

People join by scanning the QR code or opening the link, and add photos from their phone’s browser. Nobody is asked to download an app, make an account or give an email address. If someone would rather not put their name to a photo, the name is optional.

Can the photos stay within the family?

Yes. You choose who can open the gallery, and you can change it at any time. See What do the three privacy settings mean?

• Private opens only for you, the helpers you invite and people who have joined with the event’s access code. The link on its own shows nothing.
• Protected asks anyone with the link for the access code first. Print the code with the QR code, and only the people you gave it to can look.
• Require approval lets you, or a relative you trust, see each photo before anyone else does. Every photo has its location data removed and passes a safety check either way. See What does “Require approval” actually change?

Grief is not tidy, and occasionally a photo arrives that someone in the family would rather not see on a screen. You can hide it, which keeps it out of view and keeps it for you, or delete it, which removes the stored files for good. If someone asks for a photo of themselves to be taken down, delete it; anyone can also ask through the Report link on the photo, without an account. See How do I hide or delete a photo?

What about the things people want to say?

Many people find it easier to write than to speak at a funeral. The Book of Memories is an online memory book: anyone who has joined can leave a message, put their name to it and say whether they were able to attend. There is a private note as well, which only the family and the helpers they invited read, for the thing someone would say quietly rather than in front of everybody. See What is the private note for?

Messages are checked before they appear, in the same way photos are, and you can choose to approve each one first.

Should the photos be shown at the gathering?

Many families like to. The live slideshow plays the photos on a screen in the room as they are added, which means someone can add a picture over a cup of tea and see it appear a few minutes later. It needs nothing more than a screen with a browser behind it. Videos play muted, so the room stays quiet. If you would rather the screen showed only photos you have chosen, switch on Require approval first. See How do I run the live slideshow?

It is equally fine not to. Some families keep the gallery for afterwards and look through it slowly, at home. The album stays open, so people can go on adding photos for weeks afterwards, as they find them.

What does the family keep?

On an upgraded event you can download every photo as one file, each named after the person who sent it; the Book of Memories as a typeset PDF to print and keep; and a short video made from the photos, to send to relatives who could not be there. See What is in the photo archive? and How do I get a printed copy of the guestbook?

On an upgraded event the archive stays available for 5 years. A free event is kept for six months after the event date, as the Host Terms set out. There is no hurry on the day itself, but do take the family’s copy within the first few weeks, and keep it with the things you would not want to lose.

Creating the event is free. Keeping everything is one payment for the event, Premium £89, with nothing recurring. See funerals and memorials on Mosaikin and pricing.