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Records of the Past
Someone asked us if we could burn down an abandoned house a while back. It turned out that the structure wasn’t stable enough to work inside and had too many close trees, so we turned down the request. The house had belonged to a very nice older man who had passed. When we inspected the house I noticed boxes of family photos that were unwanted and would have been destroyed with the home. I’m not sure whatever happened – the house is still standing (badly). It got me thinking about how photos of our lives have changed.
I remember the old drill of getting film processed and going through the prints; we still have a few albums and boxes of photos from years past. But in this century we shoot pics with digital cameras and phones and then try to keep the files organized; thousands of pictures stacked up. Trying to find the record of a given event can be challenging.
And when we pass what will happen to our huge cloud and device folders of pictures? Will they sit unviewed for decades until the servers are gone? Kind of sad, but maybe no different from abandoned prints in a box.
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Just checked my phone: 2668 pictures . . .
My husband asks this question a lot. He doesn’t think today’s youth care enough about these things to want them. I don’t think it’s universal. There are 2 in our family (one from each side) who would be happy to have them.
Don’t get my husband started on this! He is very meticulous about our pictures. He is always trying to get people to sort out their digital pictures.
I once heard someone say something to the effect that we’re still around as long as there is one person with a living memory of our existence. After that we’re just a name on a ledger or an unknown face in an old photograph.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, ones and zeros to ones and zeros…
I’ve taken to making books of the various snaps and posed pictures taken at events or just a good visit. I ask our daughter in law for her favorites and/or best (she actually does it for a living so they are very good.) I make a copy for me and 1 for our son. I made 1 for a granddaughter who starts every visit looking at the pictures on my iPad. It was her best of for the year. The kids love to be the stars. Easy software and soft cover versions are not expensive. I assume anything on a hard drive is lost. The cloud is just someone else’s hard drive.
*added – I happen to use Motif and they almost always have a 20% off sale. Currently it’s Laborday.
Everybody should have a clause in their will to donate all their old photos/videos/audio recordings to their country’s national archives.
I think about this often. I have a boatload of photos to go through, some to discard and decide what to keep. I rarely refer back to photos on my phone. The photos that have meaning are something I can frame or look at minus an electronic device. Most photos only have meaning to the people that they belonged to, but how many historical photos were/are discovered of great events and people, or amazing scenery or even landscapes that told a story.
Example: when we moved to Atlanta and I was introduced to my father-in-law’s stomping grounds, I was not only introduced to my first boiled peanut, but he pointed out old slave cabins. They are left untouched because they tell a story, good, bad but it is history that should not be forgotten. I had never seen one and I was amazed.
I’m sure those photos that you rescued from that house are interesting and an antique shop may want to sell them for memorabilia. Or maybe try to track down any heirs.
I’ve made a few books as well, and gift copies to family members at Christmas. I still have a ways to go. Thank you for the software recommendation! Costco stopped providing that service and shifted us all over to Shutterfly, with whom I did not have a good experience.
Also, sharing scenery and hiking photos here and on FB make it worthwhile.
Edit to Add: Facebook sponsoring companies, and possibly other sites that you might prefer over it, will automatically create an album of the year or decade that you can have printed.
Years ago I purchased some very good scanning equipment, and since retirement I have time to use it.
I scanned a bunch of Grandma’s medium format negatives from the late 191Xs, into the 1930s. A couple winters ago I scanned her slide collection from the 60s, about 700 of them. This winter I need to scan my father’s slides from the 60s and 70s. Then I need to start on my own collection from the 80s…
I’m not sure why I bother. My brother and his family have no interest in family photos. He once told me that he kept a picture of our grandmother in which she was riding an elephant. That was the only image that interested him. My nephew has no interest in the family, much less it’s history. That includes letters from the Civil War.
I have a few relatives who like the old photos and letters. With one exception they are the childless ones. I suppose having children disposes one to look forward, rather than backward into the past. But I still don’t get it.
Here is Grand Dad Gerald, nearest the viewer, and an unknown friend. I wish I knew why they are standing at attention. This image was taken over 100 years ago, shortly after WWI, in front of the adobe house in which he and Grandma lived. This was what real men looked like, even when they were clowning around.
There are less than a dozen photos of me, ages 0-20, that survive.
I did a major scanning project about 16 years ago to scan several thousand of my dads and my slides from the 1940s into the 1980s and distributed copies to my family.
for paper photos, and any scanning I’ve done since then I’ve used a commercial service, “scan cafe” and have had very good results. I’ve had friends who’ve approached me about scanning their photos or slides and I’ve told them I can’t charge them a low enough price to make it worth my time that would compete with the commercial services.
the one thing I will say is if you find old negatives DO NOT THROW THEM AWAY. They contain much more information than paper prints and will scan much better. 35mm negs have > 3000 dots per inch resolution, while paper tops out around 300 DPI.
15,507 pictures, and that’s just my Apple cloud pics. All the pics I took prior to 2012 (first iPhone) are on my laptop. I don’t even know how many are there.
I’ve also used Shutterfly, but found their software cludgy and options fewer (like the paper not as pleasing) but the price point for a large project (20 books for a family reunion) was better. My daughter in law has used SnapFish for personal things, I think on price and ease of use (she’s very impatient with things she deems casual. She doesn’t produce any images for her professional work.) The books looked fine. All offer promos on-going.
I had just inherited boxes of old photos when I joined Ricochet. My avatar is my Grandfather in WWI. Dozens of army photos were in that box.
The army stationed him in Texas for three years because there was so much trouble with Mexicans coming across the border illegally.
I try to organize them into groups. However, the photos in the group still remain in the main photo section. Dang iPhone . . .
Yeah, the Apple photo app is not good for organization. I have tens of thousands of photos going back to 1912 (scanned photos of my grandparents). It’s a pain.
I know I can log into iCloud from my desktop – I wonder if it’s any easier from there.
They do not make it easy, that’s for sure. We spent hours over the last 2 days scanning photos for my sister. After scanning you have to go in and name them or else you’ll end up with the same thing as digital photos. It’s a lot of work, but once you’ve gotten on top of it and stay with it when you’ve taken more pictures, it’s not too bad. (I can say all this cause I’m not the one who does it.)
FWIW no easier in desktop.