A pondering thought

[AndyR]

#16493

Having recently cleared out my mother in laws house who sadly passed away earlier in the year and in the process we found well in excess of 500 slides . The club kindly lent me the projector and a screen to go throu them . Well im absolutely dumbfounded how they have stood the test of time. They have all been in boxes and stored away. Many of my wife and her siblings when they were little back in the early 60s which many look like they could of been took last week.  It was interesting to see inside her house back in the 60s as well she lived in the house all her life. Whilst sat going throu the slides i couldnt help thinking that what are we keeping for our  family to sit and look at 60 years from now or even 10 years from now with so much stored on hard drives and such . We now have five grandchildren when they are my age what will be there for them to look at and enjoy. Sadly alot of my side of the family images and slides etc were lost in a devastating fire back in the early 1980s. My uncle was a keen photographer and was a official photographer for The Royal Navy during WW2. They sold their house and put nearly everything they owned into storage whilst they found another house. One night the warehouse burnt to the ground and they lost everything including many valuable antiques. Sadly they discovered that they werent insured either. One of the slides we looked at was when my in laws had their brand new Austin A35 looks like it was took yesterday. Im hoping to get all the ones we want digitised so that at least for time being the rest of the family can have a look at the past with them now living in different parts of the world.

[johnm]

#16497

A nice find at a sad time, Andy.

But rather than digitise the slides by ‘traditional’ scanning I recommend carefully (e.g. ensuring they are flattish, evenly backlit  and parallel to the camera) photographing them with a DSLR, or mirrorless equivalent, and macro lens.

I have found it easily surpasses my two middle range film scanners , and I have been told it also surpasses the much revered, but rare, Nikon Coolscan. And it’s much much faster. Many YouTuber’s attest to this.

I am thinking of dpoing a mmini dempo of the technique to the club,

 

 

[dmhyett]

#16499

These family photos can be very important. For our wedding we could not afford an expensive photographer but the Echo would provide a photographer free providing you agreed to them publishing some photos. The only other snag was that they only promised a minimum of ten shot and all in B&W. The Echo sent Norman Preece the chief photographer who I later got to know; he took 13 excellent shots. A few relatives took some shots but they all turned out to be blurred or heads/feet cut off. Forty years later we received a package from a cousin who was clearing out his father stuff following his passing; his father had attended the wedding. I then recalled that he had an SLR. The package contained  36 slides of the wedding for which we were most pleased with as our 40th anniversary was imminent.

In general, I recommend good quality photobooks for a lasting record. I am assuming that, once I go, my slides and negatives will all be thrown away. The large pile of prints will definitely be disposed off and the hard disk erased. However the large Blurb coffee table book has many of my favourite pictures including a few family shots. It is very unlikely that this will be thrown away.

My Mother was very keen on family trees and records etc. and she always said ensure that photographs are labelled with the name(s) and date.

Dave

[AndyR]

#16501

Thanks for the info John i think it will be trail and error to say the least i have got a few ideas. One slide that stopped me dead in my tracks was a image of my wife when she was at school sat with a friend prob aged around 10. I didnt know her back then however our youngest daughter whose now 30 (god i feel old) was the spitting image of her mother when she was around that age. Photobooks are a good idea as well Dave. We also have gone quite far back in the family tree got back to around 1834. One mystery which will prob never be solved is on my mothers side my grandmother was born illegitimately. On her birth certificate it says father unknown. However her mother my great grandmother worked as a servant in the royal household as well we believe in other aristocratic houses etc. It seems her mother refused to say who the father was and took that to the grave. Wether she did ever tell my grandmother  but told her to remain silent who knows. My grandmother died in 1969 and if she did leave this world without knowing who her father was i find it quite sad. How times have changed

[dmhyett]

#16504

When my Mother researched her side of the family, she discovered that a great great Grandfather had been hung for stealing a sheep though it was more common to be deported to Australia then. On the male side of the family she found a connection to the Hyett’s who live/own the Painswick Rococo Gardens and also found a link to Berkley Castle.

Dave

[dmhyett]

#16505

When my Mother researched her side of the family, she discovered that a great great Grandfather had been hung for stealing a sheep though it was more common to be deported to Australia then. On the male side of the family she found a connection to the Hyett’s who live/own the Painswick Rococo Gardens and also found a link to Berkley Castle.

Dave

[AndyR]

#16510

Also we discovered that my brother in laws grandparents surname was Gimbel which is the German way of spelling it at start of WW1 they changed it to Gimble the English way. They lived in South London all their lives and were born in London.

[Author]

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