STRATEGY
OF ATTACK:
How to Deal with the Family Photo
Collection
Jerry
Nelson
McLean,
VA
email
Most
families make false moves
(or
none at all) with their photos.
The first real problem is reviewing the entire collection
and
throwing out at least half the
images. Keep a felt-tipped pen handy. You can
mark
the knock-out shots for later attention as you pass by, but
the
first priority is getting rid of the repetition and junk.
Less
is more.
The second real problem is getting information about what's in the
picture -- often even the names
are missing. Names are too obvious to the living to even
write
down, but all of us only live to die. As in so many things,
these
tasks become impossible
for aging parents to perform, and children are often too
reluctant to take over for parents in this task as in so many others.
Without the energy
to do any better, parents will think the best thing to do is
"scan
everything and give it to the kids." The tragedy is complete
when
they actually do this, and the originals are discarded.
This is a tragedy because the same pile of hundreds of images
that was such a barrier to the parents is even more of a barrier to the
children, who now have even less tangible, physical basis for figuring
out how old
an image is or who's in it. If a photo is good but the scan
is
poor and needs to be re-done, it can be impossible to find the original
corresponding to image "1304.jpg" in folder "Batch5" even if
the
originals were kept.
As households are
dissolved, the
Dumpster is never far away. The
goal with family photos, it seems to me, is creating beauty that is
effortlessly accessible to anyone at a glance, a beautiful
object that evokes the
telling and retelling of stories. I have developed the tools
and
technology I use because I think the goal of photography is a great
print.
In sum,
children
should help parents since photos are all about sharing in the first
place.
This is grinding, tough work. Sometimes the technology is the
least of it -- the issues are
emotiona
l.
In my
self-serving opinion, as
you run across one knock-out shot in a hundred, I think you
should
send it to a craftsman like myself at once, make that print, and reward
yourselves with a
real
"stunner" as you slog onwards. The job will seem worth the
struggle if it turns into a treasure hunt.
Send copies of
these treasures to other family members as you find them. No
one will
ever object to such a gift, and you need to find out who cares and
wants to help.
Scanning by itself solves nothing and creates problems. What,
then, can we expect from the digital revolution?
New technology is
interesting not because
a CD makes pictures any easier for someone to look at than slides in a
slide box. The new technology is powerful because it offers a
brand
new place for great images; namely a family Website where anyone
can access the images from anywhere in the world at any time.
The digital revolution brings access. To
see what's out there, do a search (I use google.com for searching).
Just search for "online photo album
sharing", or for "family website hosting". Whether
you go for a
simple album or a Website with more text and control of the
presentation, the images must be digitized. I can help you
digitize and restore images. But first they must
be found!
--jerry
Rev 4/06