It ain’t easy being the family matriarch, I have realized. When my mother passed in 2015 I took on the role (willingly, I might add) of being the keeper of my parents’ photo albums, slides, and home movies. I had always meant to go through all of this media methodically and judiciously, at some point. To carefully – and with as much information as possible – get them into a digital format, so as to preserve them for sharing with my siblings as well as future generations. I had planned this to be a nice, leisurely retirement project.
I suppose you may have guessed by now that I had to box up all of the photo albums, slide boxes, and reels of film and haul them along with me, to my new home on Vancouver Island. Because – despite being retired for almost 6 months prior to my move – I had yet to begin the process. Oh, how wonderful it would have been to just have all of this stuff whittled down to a couple of photo boxes, some DVDs, and a home on the cloud somewhere! Alas, I had to sacrifice the shelf in the spare room closet of my new space for all of this stuff. That remained untouched as I approach my second anniversary here…until just this past week.
So what finally kicked my lazy ass into gear spurred me to action, you may well ask? Another move, of course! This summer I will be moving to a new abode, after my daughter and son-in-law take possession of the property that they have signed a deal to purchase. They are currently living in the home I will be moving into, which is on the property they are purchasing from their landlords. They will be moving into the landlord’s home (right next to where they are living now), and I’ll be moving into their space. We’ll be together on the same 1/2 acre property, but in completely separate dwellings.
This new dwelling-to-be of mine is even smaller than the apartment I’m living in now and quite dated, but I am looking forward to the challenge of updating it and making it work for me. To have a yard (and future garden!) and the potential to have a dog again (!!!), as well as being even closer to family…well, these are things that fill me with anticipatory joy, even though it will be a summer filled with packing/unpacking and renovation work. I’m looking forward to updating Ye Olde Blogge with all the Befores and Afters!
OK, back to the Photo Project: I’ll be damned if I am going to haul these photo albums to my new place, I have decided. This past week I finally dove into it. I have set myself a restriction of only 1 photo album (two if they are not too big – emotionally OR physically-speaking) per day. This work is hard let me tell you…so many memories are being revived as I go through the pages of the albums, and not all of them are good. And if they are good memories, for the most part the persons in the photos are long gone…and that brings up a renewed sense of grief and loss.
But – I am putting on my big girl pants everyday, and gettin’ to it! Yay me! So far I have managed to condense this:
To this:
I did start out with some of the easier albums – the ones full of pictures of the various cruises my parents went on. Plenty of bad shots of scenery (neither of my parents could take a picture worth a damn) and other cruise guests they met onboard. Meaningless except to my parents, both of whom have left this world…thus easy to ruthlessly cull. One album was full of pictures of my first wedding…I managed to get through that in one go and kept most of the shots. I was so young and delusional back then….sigh.
I can’t rest on my laurels though, because I still have all of this to contend with:
And this:
Phase 2 of this project will be digitizing as much as possible. I’ve been looking into my technological options, and so far this appears to have the most favourable reviews online (and not just on Amazon):
In the past I’ve used an app on my phone (Photoscan, by Google) to take the odd snap of an old photo and digitize it…but it would be incredibly tedious to do so for all the photos I have in my possession. I need a better solution. The Epson might be it, but I want to ask you – Dear Readers – for your advice. Have you digitized your old photos? What worked and what didn’t? What was your strategy or what would you do differently if you had a do-over? Please do share if you can, in the Comments.
Rock on,
The WB
Respect, my friend. It’s not an easy job, but there’s nothing quite like the prospect of packing, moving, unpacking, and trying to find a new home for everything, to get a cleanup job done!
You said it! Let the purging begin (again!) 😁 Thanks, my friend 💕
I downsized my photos before moving but I was lucky that my niece took what I didn’t want. Its a huge job and you’ll be glad you did it. I still have some things I want digitized but I’m taking them to a local photo shop that has a service. My only tip would be to keep a few hard copy photos because tech stuff gets obsolete often enough that what you think is safe in a cloud or memory card might not last as long as you think.
So happy for you about your upcoming house. Sounds like an ideal set up.
Thank you, Jean 💕. Yes, it is pretty ideal. I’ll be farther from the ocean, but I’ll have a garden and – because it is a semi-rural area – I can have a fire pit in my backyard! I’m definitely keeping the hard copies, just not in those heavy albums. Good advice – thanks again Jean!
OMG, so happy for you and your kids! HOME will feel so good 🙂
way to go tackling this project….so worth it in the end. I highly endorse getting a company to do the scanning as compared to doing it yourself. We went through this process in 2018 as we moved across the country and were able to weed through lifetimes of photos, magazine/newpaper clippings, slides (the worst to deal with!) and a variety of camcorder video formats. You still need to go through and pick out what you want to keep but having a professional do the actual work of scanning was soooo worth it. Not sure if there is a company that does this where you live but perhaps in one of the bigger cities (I think I saw one). Have fun doing and enjoy both the laughter and the tears. It’s so worth it!!
Hey Brenda! How are you, girl? Good advice – I think you might be right. I’ll have to look into this. It’s definitely an option to evaluate. Thanks 💕
doing great thanks! lots has happened in last while. We should get together over a glass of something or other and catch up. Be well in the meantime!
Absolutely! Email me and let’s connect!
I’m so impressed that you are tackling this project, Deb. (But please don’t tell Richard because I don’t want him getting ideas that I will do the same). 😀
I look forward to hearing your updates!
Thank you, my friend 💕 Hmmmm…just how much do you want me to keep my mouth shut? I sense an opportunity here 😉
Ha ha! 😀
Hi WB
I can relate with this because I have around 30 scrapbooks to still go through – and got rid of five in January – they had photos, ticket stubs from theatre and musicals, camp bracelets etc.
anyhow – I actually thought I could do all 30 that month and stopped with five because it was so exhausting (as you noted -(Mentally and physically)
The good news is that I quickly looked through them all and I know that this will help me when I tackle it again (maybe this summer) oh and I I used photo boxes like you did and amazing how much space it saves (the big albums are not needed)
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The scanner you featured looks like a great option – but do hang onto some originals because there is still some value in an artifact.
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The new place sounds great for all the reasons you mentioned – but also you will be closer to family (with still your ow place -!) and that is priceless!
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Yes! Priceless. Well said. Thank you 💕
And not sure you need this – but for some reason what really helped me was watching the minimalism documentaries on Netflix (2016 and 2021) – helped be “release” and also decide what to keep.
Thank you 💕 My style could never be confused with minimalism, unfortunately 😉. When it comes to the (often badly taken) photos I am going through, I favour keeping those that show a story or some aspect of the subject’s personality. And I will be keeping the hard copies as you wisely suggested…even though I am going to smaller space, I will definitely find room for my condensed collection.
Sounds like you have got enough time and the right motivation!
True!
I had to digitise all my parents old slides (and a few from my grandparents). I borrowed a machine from a friend (it could do photos, slides and negatives). I wish I could help (because it was great) but I have no idea of the brand and my friend is travelling at the moment and she won’t remember (and she won’t have taken it with her).
That’s OK, AJ. It’s good to know that such a machine exists. I think if it is not the Epson I mentioned in the post, it is possibly a close cousin! Thanks 💕
I have to agree with Joanne Sisco above
Thank you, Sheree 💕
😎
Hi Deb – a major project … I know I’ve done two or three go-throughs of mine … but need to do another clear out … but one gets fed up – and batches piles together again. The epson scanner sounds easy, but I think the best one would be getting them done locally – then at least it’s done and dusted into digital form. So wonderful to read about the move and change to be with family – wonderful fun … exciting … good luck – cheers Hilary
Thank you very much, Hilary 💕
Best of luck with this task. The easy ones I found to deal with were ones Mum had taken on her 100s of coach trips with people and places I didn’t know. My Dad had loads of badly taken slides. I went through them carefully and digitised the ones of people, but ignored all his landscapes. He was a terrible photographer. I have however still got the actual slides. Then I also have an enormous box of Mum’s photos which I did move house with and I really should tackle. It has only just occurred to me that all the stuff I kept from my parents, is no longer theirs it is my stuff now. And if I don’t want it I don’t have to keep it and my sons will almost certainly just throw it away.
How incredibly exciting and wonderful to have two properties on one plot so you can be so close to your family. Looking forward to reading more.
It certainly was harder to take good photos, back in the day. I can’t believe how much my photographic skills have improved due to the technology. It is very exciting, my upcoming move. It is the best situation I could have hoped for…close to family yet still retaining independence (and staying out of each others’ daily business 😉). Thank you, NanaCathy 💕
First, the move sounds exciting. Family, garden and dog? Sounds perfect and I look forward to seeing how you make the place your own. The photos? Wonderful idea, I should do the same. Our house is stuffed with albums from floor to ceiling, I’d love to do it but I fear I’d overwhelm my computer’s storage capacity. I sometimes scan old pics through my printer but usually just take a picture of them with my cell phone. Good luck!
I’ve been taking the odd snap with my cellphone, in order to share quickly and easily with family. But to do this for hundreds of photos???? No thank you. Yes, I am very excited for this move, although it is many months off still. I doubt I will be fully moved over until closer to the end of August, thanks to renovations I have planned. Which gives me lots of time to pare down yet again. 😁 Thanks, RG 💕
For me and my printer it’s more time consuming that way. Mind you, I’ve never waded through all my albums and understand why everyone recommends paying to have it done.
😉
Yeah, me too…I’ll definitely have to look into that option.
Hi Deb, I love your idea of tackling one album a day. I have been retired 7 years now and still have not completed this task. I start then just get completely overwhelmed. Also 7 years ago we moved into a small house on my daughters property to help with the grandchildren as her husband was working out of country. It fills my heart everyday when I see them and am still able to help. Good luck with your move and as always thank you for sharing.
It is easy to become overwhelmed with this job, I can attest to that! Sounds like your living situation is very close to what mine will be. I think it is a good way to live…more like the “old way” when extended family was live-in or close by. It does take a village to raise children, and it is also good for aging in place. Thank you, Mabel 💕
I SO get you on this task. I am the only one left in my family and I’ve been left with ALL of the photos/albums from my Mom and Dad’s side; it’s a daunting task.
At the beginning of the pandemic I had a goal to get it all digitized for my girls. I started scanning in everything on my printer but it was just.too.much.
I ended up sending all my photos to Scan My Photos.Com.
It seems a bit expensive, but it was super easy and they have sales most of the time.
I’m SO excited about your move. A dog. A garden. Renovations! What an exciting time for you and your daughter to be closer.
Hmmmm…I will have to check out that site. And I think Costco could do something with the home movies. Thank you Suz 💕 I am very excited too, and strangely enough the challenges the new space provides excites me the most! Can I downsize YET AGAIN??? Stay tuned!
Rule No. 1 for me was to toss all the Hawaiian sunset photos. Ended up with a shoebox of stuff I sent to my youngest sister, who is 15 years younger. She should be the “keeper of the flame,” since she’ll be around the longest. She didn’t want the pinecone Christmas ornaments, though.
YES! All of the landscape photos without anyone recognizable in them were an easy toss! Thank you, Jean 💕
You inspire me to do better with our family photos. I have them stuffed in boxes, hidden in closets. Ditto what Suz said. I’m the only one left on both sides. What to do, what to do.
I’m thrilled to read about your move. I look forward to many stories and photos of how it all unfolds.
It IS a bit of a task and a burden, isn’t it? I’ll be happy when the photos are all sorted and dealt with. I’ll probably bore everyone with all the deets on the move (like that will stop me 😉) but I plan to show everything – warts, failures and all – so hopefully there will be some entertainment value in laughing at my mistakes. Thanks, Ally 💕
I wish you luck and please let us know how it goes and what you end up doing …going with that scanner or a service. I have used my printer’s scanner to do some of our images but it’s a slow and clunky method of doing it. I gave up.
We’ve got old family videos in VCR to convert to DVD as well. I keep putting it off.
Congratulations on your upcoming move! It sounds wonderful especially so because you’ll be really close to your family. I’m looking forward to your blogging entries and images about the move and your new home.
Thank you, Deborah 💕 I will be keeping everyone updated about the move and the new place, for sure!
I have used three different companies to scan pictures.My favorites are Southtree. Legacy box and scan my photos.com .legacy and Southtree often have sales. I do a little at a time when there our sales.
Oh, that’s a good strategy! Thank you, Arlene 💕
I recently sent my mom a picture of a Kodak Scanza on Amazon for their slides, but I’m not sure whether it helps with photographs.
I am SO excited for you and your move. Is it close to where you currently live?
I am moving 25 minutes away from where I am now…so not far. And out of the city (yay!). I won’t be able to walk down to the ocean anymore…but I’ll only be a few minutes away by car. The positives far outweigh the negatives on this move. I have slides, photos and negatives to deal with…as well as home movies. The home movies will go to a professional for conversion but I would like to handle the rest myself if I can. If the Scanza only does slides that wouldn’t be effective for me, but I’ll take a look at it. Thanks, Kari 💕
Hi Deb, my older daughter digitized all the photos on my camera. As for the mountains of photos left from the past…it’s a some day project. I still like the hard copy.
Leslie xoxo
Thanks, Leslie 💕 I like the hard copies too, but not all the room they take up in those big heavy albums. And I want to share the photos with my family so uploading them to the cloud is the way to go.
It’s just getting it organized….you can stack a lot into an album…
Not as much as in a photo box!
Wow! You are speaking to me, WB. The emotional weight of going through old photos and documents was so great I had to stop. It’s a must, though, as I continue to downsize and relocate overseas. Your move sounds wonderful!
As for digitizing everything, I’m hoping to find a service that will do it all for me at a reasonable cost.
Good luck, Deb!
Same to you, HG! I am watching your relocation story with great interest and excitement. The emotional weight is something, isn’t it? Thank you 💕
You deserve a Well Done, Deb! for even beginning to tackle that shelf!
I was sent a small portion of family memorabilia about 10 years ago, some of which never made it into my Chicago loft. When I needed to downsize before another move, I did a scan & cull, using an old & clunky H-P printer/scanner. That took a lot of time, but as there weren’t any slides or films I was spared those problems. The only set of negatives I had, I decided to just have printed, then scanned them at home. I’ve kept some of the older prints that either my dad or grandad probably developed & printed themselves. If I’d had slides, I would have had them done professionally. Ditto film. And yes, it’s an exhausting process. But oh, so grand when somebody emails a question and you can shoot back a scan in an email!
Yes, absolutely! And to able to put all of the photos on a folder in the cloud and give my relatives access…that is what I am looking forward to. Onward!!! Thanks, Del 💕
I am tackling this job slowly. I’m not the keeper of the stuff in our
bigger family but we are doing our slides from the early 80’s. We are getting them professionally done after we finish the cull photos. Then we are tackling the copious bad quality videos of our kiddos growing up. Again we want to know what’s on it before we pay to have it processed. But..we had to find a working camcorder to play them and that was a challenge! As to albums – I’m actually a fan of them. My kids used to sift through ours regularly and now our grandkids love to look at them. Having said that I want to do photos books from 2017 onward and find that daunting and it’s all good memories.
As to the move! A yard, garden and a dog! Perfect trade off to a short drive to the beach.
Albums are great if you have the room. My parents’ home movies are actual reels of film and I don’t know who still has that technology so I can watch them again to see if they are worth converting to DVD. I guess I’ll just take my chances 🤷♀️. Thanks, Bernie 💕
That’s serious old school with reels. I thought finding a camcorder was hard enough!
Yikes! That’s a big job (although I’m pretty sure I didn’t need to tell you that). I have several family albums as well as several personal ones. I know I should go through them but… that’s a big job. That scanner looks perfect. If you lived closer, I’d ask to borrow it 🙂
I’ll let you know if I end up buying it. Thanks, Janis 💕
Congrats on the new house and yay you for doing the photos. My husband was also going to do it…twenty years ago. Still in multiple boxes. Makes me crazy. When he took photos he kept them all — blurry, bad shots, duplicates, argh! His daughter took a box 5 years ago and hasn’t done those yet. Maybe it’s a family thing. I have one box of photos. I cull as I take and now with digital, no paper! Good luck!
I’m finding all those blurry out of focus duplicates too 😫. It makes the tossing easy. I cull as I take too. Loving today’s technology! Thanks, Kate 💕
I just downloaded the photo scan app. Thanks for the great tip. I will be following your thoughts on how your project is going.
Thank you, Bernadette 💕 I think it’s a great little app…just not for a huge project like I am facing.
Yes I have been down this road. I can stark a pile of photos in my printer hit scan and away the go. I have an HP multifunction printer. They all turned out ok and those that didn’t I can edit in the photo app on my laptop. I still have a stack to go through too. The hardest project was the slides. The Vancouver public library has a device that scans slides but it is time consuming, and the quality was not great. You can buy machines to do this at home. I didn’t scan in from camera as it is too tedious and lighting not great. If you want to try my printer come up here some day.
Stack not stark
Thank you, Ann 💕 I have a scanner on my printer as well which I don’t know why I have never thought to try (!!!!). What is the photo app you are using on your laptop? I have a MacBook, and I have used their software to edit. I find it more cumbersome than just editing on my phone, but maybe that’s because I don’t use it enough. It is great for sorting current digital photos by date but I don’t know the dates on most of these hard copies. I could just guesstimate I suppose…
I have a PC which comes with an app called Photos. The iPhone does have good editing software. The laptop software has a few more options like you can add captions and text. That is helpful to identify people.
My mom moved from her home 3 yrs ago and managing her photos was one of the results of that. It’s easy to part with the landscape photos and those with unrecognizable people. That whole process was motivation to cull my own pictures. How many pictures of ex-husbands, cows & horses does one need?! Culling photos was on my list of winter projects. I managed to get through 3 albums. I actually have some of the same albums as you. Years ago, I was showing off my scrapbooking projects to an aunt who said – no one will care about those pictures when you’re gone. I thought it was a crass remark but I have come to realize the truth in it. My son wouldn’t recognize 80%+ of the people in the photos. Heck, I didn’t even recognize some of the people myself! I have a box of negatives from back in the day that hasn’t been opened for >20 yrs. Why am I keeping them? Today’s photo storage technology will be obsolete in the future. Think of all the digital photos that are hard to find and never looked at. Is there a better way?
I don’t know if there is a better way. I am sure digital will be obsolete one day too – replaced with what? Who knows. For millenia, humans have tried to capture memories and only now do we have the means to capture so much…much of which will be meaningless once the principals have passed on. Yet another thing humans have advanced in technologically without fully understanding what to do with it. The Information Age…a blessing and a curse. I probably will need to cull several times more…or that will be a job for the next generation. We have the technology now to embed all kinds of information along with the photos, but will anyone care to read it or make sense of it? Probably overthinking things and placing too much importance on things only I care about. Your aunt hit the nail on the head. Thank you 💕
I’m really interested to hear about your experience with that photo scanner. My mother has the old family photo albums – not just our family, but also those of both sets of my grandparents. As we were all born & brought up in India, some of the photos are really interesting & unusual, and I don’t want to lose them. She was going to pare them right back before relocating to the US to live with my sister, meaning I could take my pick of what she didn’t want, but has now decided to take them all with her. So I’m going to have to go through them and take copies if I want any at all. I had thought of using a photo app, as I’ve a nice quality portable photo printer, but getting a good quality photo of an existing photo is darn tricky. I’ve been putting off working out how best to do it as we’ve been waiting for years for her application to progress. But suddenly, we’ve reached visa interview stage, so it’s getting seriously close.
Good luck with the process, it’s a big job. I hope the experience brings with it some lovely memories for you too 🙂
There has been a fair bit of trauma in our family, compared to some (and not so much compared to others) so unfortunately those memories seem to overshadow the happy ones. Even if the happy memory is there, it is often a foreshadowing of something bad that will happen later that day or in that particular room or with that particular person. I’m really starting to wonder why I am wanting to preserve these photos. I guess it’s for my kids, who have nicer associations with some of these people than I do. If I do buy the scanner, I will post about it. But that may be months in the future. It’s taking a lot more out of me than I thought, to go through these albums. Thanks, Debs 💕
I did a similar project a few years back, not wanting to move boxes and boxes of photos again. I went the professional route to digitize them. After spending hours and hours (lost count how many days!) sorting and reducing, I just didn’t have the energy to scan! I used Legacy Box (wait for when they have a sale!) but there are others as well. You mail them in, you get digital back.
That sounds worth checking out, Pat! Thank you 💕
Deb, congratulations of the move. It sounds like the perfect situation for everyone. I certainly empathize with what you are going through. Purging is never fun, but sorting and pitching unnecessary boxes of photos is a good place to start. Personally, I’d get the scanner and do it yourself if you have a managable amount left over. It’s not so bad – rainy day job.
Yeah, I agree. It is getting much more manageable. I’d like to be able to include any background information with the photos as I scan them. I am not sure how this is possible with photos you send out for scanning…I guess I’d better look into it. The move is a very good situation for me and my family. Thanks, Suzanne 💕