A man contacted me via Yelp! a couple months ago. He started our conversation talking about the “photos saved to date ticker” on my website. He said, “I have about 9,000 family slides I’d like to digitize and add to that number.” I was excited!
We exchanged all the details to meet later that week to pick up all the slides and start the project. For me a project of family slides is like watching a new movie—without reading the summary. I laugh, I cry and I like the mystery of what is to come. I feel so very privileged to step into someone else’s family and truly be like a fly on the wall. When I was 19, I was in a car accident, and it really messed with my memory. But I’ve found that when I see pictures from my life, I re-remember those events more easily. So–when I look at other families memories, I feel like I am re-living their events as an outside family member–or the photographer. It really brings me a lot of joy!
This particular family collection was passed down to this man from both his dad and grandfather. There are TWO generations of photos I got to bring back to life. While I am completing the job I get to look at these photos over and over with a little more clarity after each view and the focus of detail is really incredible.
My first view is very unclear. Getting a slight glance at each negative image as I load them into the slide holder I use for digitizing. The next step is cleaning each slide, I get a little more from the images as I clean them, I hold them up to the light to make sure they are clean and ready for scanning. My next view is a little better I can now see the colors and all 30 images on my computer. I can see the people and the outline of faces, but the images are very small. After they are scanned, I have clarity, but when I put them into Photo shop and do my final cleaning and inspection–THAT is when I see the entire picture. When I combine the first 30 images with the other 8,970, I get to see an entire family come to life and see their story unfold right before my eyes. Oh…what a privilege it is! I get to see two people fall in love, get married, have baby number 1, all the babies firsts, then baby number 2, and the first becoming a big brother. For this family, I was surprised to find out they had 6 beautiful children! The man that called me to do this project was number 5.
I smile every time I get to a new set of their history, it brings me so much joy to see a photo of their Christmas tree every year. It’s so interesting to see that in this big world of ours we are still all very similar in the photos we capture to save as our most precious memories. For my family–I take a picture of my Christmas tree every year too.
Being part of this journey is very special, and I feel the weight when the family experiences some sorrow too. Not knowing the complete story, I’ve filled in the blanks. I watched each slide come through that showed, what looked to be the last photos of the man’s grandmother. She got really thin and all the older kids took photos with her. Then she was no longer in the Christmas pictures. I saw when the man’s great-grandfather celebrated his 80th birthday, he was in a hospital type bed and it looked to be an assisted living hospital. These were the first and last photos I saw of him. So, I’ve had to fill in the blanks about him also. I keep saying what a privilege it is to bring these photos back to life, but I’m not sure you–my dear reader, understand the gravity I feel being part of something so little for some, but incredibly important for this family.
The story did not end there, I found joy again when his grandfather got remarried to grandma number 2, but great-grandma from grandma number 1 still attended Christmas, that was so cool. I feel like I’m right in the middle of their story, I can’t wait to see how it all turns out. Right now I’m at the part where his first sibling is just getting married. I haven’t seen Siblings #2 & #3 for awhile, maybe military and college out of state, not really sure. Sibling #4 just graduated from high school, the man just promoted from junior high and Sibling #6 the baby of the family is an amazing athlete running in meets all over the country.
I guess my intent of this lengthy post is to let my clients know, I take the task you give me seriously, I feel part of your family history–I know that sounds strange. I realize how precious these memories are and I’m am so very thankful and truly humbled to be part of the background; that ensures the legacy of your family continues to bring joy for generations to come. I feel the role I play is so small, but I know that because you trusted me with your memories I will help them last many years to come.holder
