I have 30 pages of text about my girlfriend’s life and began dropping digital phone photos in. All fine for a while and
then I began losing some of the images, or they would move to a different part of the page so the picture was no longer above its test caption.
How did you anchor the pictures? See Type
tab in Format
→ Picture...
, Anchor property. You can also check Wrap
tab.
Without more detail on how images are inserted, type of image etc it is hard to say.
Perhaps you might find [Tutorial] Some useful hints on using images (View topic) • Apache OpenOffice Community Forum useful for some info on using images in Writer.