For all to see: Jerry Taylor takes aim

Jerry and Sherry Taylor have always been passionate about sharing family memories. Sherry's "the picture-taker," says husband Jerry—capturing holidays, trips, gatherings, new home purchases and even, he adds, "my stupid backyard golf course." Meanwhile, Jerry's role is to make sure the photos are seen by the right people.

As empty nesters from Hilton, New York, only their immediate family lives close enough to enjoy the shots, so Jerry had his work cut out for him. In the old days, he'd snail-mail prints to relatives. In the '90s, he started scanning photos and e-mailing them. "It was easier than ordering copies and sending them out," he says.

But recently, Jerry, who has a job integrating technology into the curriculum of a nearby school district, had a revelation: Why not launch a personal Web site, load it with snapshots, and invite friends and family to partake? "This was the easiest of all," he says. "Now they decide whether they want to print the photos or not. We've gotten a lot of positive feedback. When I send out e-mail to say that there are new pictures online, almost everyone takes the time to write back and say, 'Oh, I especially liked that one' or 'I printed out this one.'"

It's a ritual that's becoming increasingly common these days. As digital photography, computers and electronics become more user-friendly, and users become more tech-savvy, people like the Taylors are finding it simple and fun to share their memories digitally.

And not just still photos—videos, too. The Taylors started dabbling with a digital camcorder this year, and Jerry has even uploaded video clips onto his Web site. "A large number of folks are now learning to communicate with video," says Chuck Peters, managing editor of Videomaker magazine. "Video editing is becoming more approachable. It's really opened the door for people."

It's a snap: The Pollocks

One of those people is Judy Pollock, a retired sociology professor from Chicago who loves shooting family videos. "We're part of the electronics age," Pollock says. "The equipment keeps evolving."

What she has been doing is putting all the big family events on video—everything from her husband's recent birthday party to an African safari vacation they took two years ago. And when she gathers family and friends at the house for screenings, she shares her experiences with a presentation that she's edited on her computer—to which she may have even added music.

Shared memories of an African safari

And all those old home movies her husband, Byron, took on film? The Pollocks had them transferred to DVDs a couple of years ago. Now playing them is easy, and Judy thinks it was worth the effort. Looking at the clips of when their children were small, "I feel nostalgia," she says, "and a tenderness and a real appreciation for those moments we had together."

Sharing memories via technology can be "a whole lot easier than you think," says Jerry Taylor. Easy and relatively inexpensive: Some Internet service providers and Web sites like Sony's ImageStation.com^SM offer customers a free site to post photos.

Of course, learning how to edit and showcase your memories is not just a matter of technical skill. Videomaker's Chuck Peters has some advice for the novice video enthusiast: "Less is more," he says. "When you buy a computer system with editing software, it comes with hundreds of transition effects. You can make your video flip and spin and page-curl and star-wipe and circle-wipe, but that's often a distraction to the viewer. Resist the urge to use an effect just because it's there."

And, finally, Peters urges, "Keep it short. I'd rather have somebody watch one of my videos and say, 'Oh, is it over already? Let's watch it again!'"