Turn photos you already have into a timeline
The most common reason people do not start a progress series is that they think they have missed the start. Usually they have not — the photographs exist, scattered across a camera roll, and every one of them is stamped with the day it was taken.
01
The date is already in the file
Every photo your phone takes records when it was taken. Importing a year of photographs is not guesswork about the order — the order is already there, and it is exact.
02
Imperfect old photos are still worth importing
Photos you took before you had any intention of making a series will not match each other well. They still establish where you were. The framing only has to become consistent from the point you start caring, not retroactively.
03
Pick a reference from the oldest, not the newest
If you want everything to line up going forward, choose the earliest usable photograph as the reference. Choosing a recent one makes every historical photo the odd one out.
Starting late is still starting
A series that begins with six imperfect imported photographs and then runs cleanly for a year is worth far more than one you postpone until conditions are right.