Slideshow, Short Film or Photo Frame? How to Show Family Photos at a Gathering

A 90th birthday, a golden anniversary, a reunion, a memorial - when the family gathers, the photos do half the talking. The short answer on how to show them: a slideshow from a phone or laptop on the TV is the fastest option for most rooms; a short film is right when you want something that plays once, with music, for everyone at the same time; a photo frame works best when you want pictures quietly on show all evening without anyone pressing play. Each is more doable than it sounds, even with a day to go.

This page is about the showing - format, screen, cables. If you're still stuck on which photos to use, start with how to choose the photos when you have thousands and come back.

Before you start

• The photos - on your phone, a laptop, a USB stick or a shared album, wherever they are right now.

• A screen - the living room TV, a laptop, a borrowed tablet, or the venue's projector.

• A way to connect - an HDMI cable (or a USB-C to HDMI adapter), or casting from your phone if the TV supports it.

• Time - thirty minutes is enough for the simplest version. The options below go from fastest to most involved.

One thing not to do: don't delete anything from anyone's phone while you're pulling photos together. Copy first, tidy later.

Which one fits your gathering

• People will be milling about, talking - a photo frame or a looping slideshow. Nobody has to stop and watch.

• There's a moment when everyone sits down - a toast, a speech, the end of a service - a short film, played once.

• You have a few hours, not days - a slideshow from the device the photos are already on.

Option 1: a slideshow on the TV or a laptop

Right if the photos are already on one device and you have less than a day. Setup takes five to ten minutes. At about eight seconds a photo, 15 photos run for two minutes and 60 photos for eight before it loops.

• Put the photos you want into one album or folder.

• Open the slideshow option in the photo app you already use.

• Set each photo to around eight seconds - long enough to look, short enough to keep moving.

• Connect to the screen by cable (the most reliable) or cast wirelessly.

• Test it on the actual screen the day before if you can. What looks sharp on a phone can look soft on a big TV.

Many photo apps let you add one song underneath. For a birthday, that might be the record they danced to at their wedding; for a memorial, the song everyone associates with them. Choosing music that sounds like them goes into that choice.

Option 2: a short film

If you want something that plays once, start to finish, with music and a few short video clips woven in, make a short film. The free video editors on most phones and computers handle it: add the photos, pick a song, choose a transition, export. Allow 45 minutes to two hours.

Export it as an MP4 - it plays on almost any TV or laptop - and put a copy on a USB stick as a backup. Keep it short. Three to five minutes holds a room; fifteen loses it.

If the family's photos are already in Glow, it sorts them into memories by decade and occasion and makes a short highlight reel of each, ready to play or share to WhatsApp. That can be your starting cut, or the whole film.

Option 3: a photo frame

A frame is right when you want photos on show before people arrive and running quietly all evening. It sits on a sideboard, cycles through the pictures, and lets people look at their own pace - the photos become part of the room rather than a programme.

You don't need to buy one. Any tablet on a stand will do: a slideshow in its photo app, set to loop, screen timeout off, charger plugged in. Glow's photo frame turns a tablet into a frame that plays the family's photos full screen, in one of six styles, with nothing invented on it.

If the photos are scattered across the family

Some on your phone, some on your sister's laptop, some in your dad's old iPad. This is the usual situation, and a few days is enough.

• Ask everyone to send their photos to one place - a shared album, an email thread, or a folder.

• Copy everything into one folder with a plain name, like "Photos for Saturday".

• Don't aim for perfect order. Rough decades help; a random mix is fine.

Old prints in an album count too. A phone photo of each print, taken flat in good daylight, is good enough for a TV - you can scan them properly later.

If you've run out of time

The gathering is tomorrow and the photos are a mess. Plug your phone into the TV, open the album, press play on shuffle. That takes two minutes and it works. A hundred unsorted photos on a loop is better than none because you ran out of time to choose. People came to be together; the photos are the backdrop.

After the gathering

You've just done something hard: pulled the family's photos into one place. Don't let them scatter again. Before you close the laptop, put the folder somewhere lasting - a backup drive, a cloud account, or a private family space like Glow, where relatives can add the names and the story behind each picture. Someone who was at the party but isn't in the family space can still add a story to a photo through a guest link.

The photos that made people stop and point are often the best place to start a longer conversation. Who's that standing next to Grandma? Where was that taken? Ask while the people who know are still in the room.