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Friday Favorite: Old Photos

January 24th, 2014

Whenever I find an envelope that contains a few photos I scan them, put them in my photo organization software and throw away the actual photo. In the software I use I tag everything well and organize it into folders. That way I know exactly where everything is. It’s fun to come across a few oldies like these:
The Beagles
My indoor soccer team when I was in college.
wendy and susy 1
wendy and susy 2
I mentioned last week that I’ve been trying to minimize, minimize, minimize. You have to stay on top of these things so they don’t get away from you. At least nowadays most photos are taken digitally so they don’t clutter up your living space. It’s nice to digitize all these images, they’re much easier to find when categorized and tags. I find myself looking through them more often now that they’re on my computer!

Do you have a lot of old photos laying around?

12 Comments to “Friday Favorite: Old Photos”
  1. Ilene on January 24, 2014 at 7:35 am

    Boy, howdy, do I!

    I’m the genealogist in our family so I have tons of ’em, some of which I don’t even know who they are, except that they must be related, as the pictures came out of somebody’s shoebox.

    like you, I have most of them scanned in and categorized, and I’ve been using a digital camera for years, in fact I’m still using the old Sony FD Mavica that stores images on floppies! I have a newer one but I’m so comfortable with this one I just can’t let it go. All I have to do is charge up the battery every now and then.

    I was sooooo happy when they finally developed the digital camera. No more flashcubes, buying film, and developing costs! So cheap and easy now to take a dozen pictures of something and just delete all but the best one.

    Reply to Ilene's comment

  2. Sonya on January 24, 2014 at 8:07 am

    What program do you use to categorize all those pics? I need to do something with an old photo album that has been passed down from the early 1900’s to share with other family. It is fragile and has people &/or places identified beneath each pic on a small slip of paper. Along with it came the family history, handwritten back to 1886…. So worth hanging onto.

    This past year I just took a few digital pictures of a few of the old ones just so I could have them to share at a funeral. They were a bit fuzzy, but still discernible.

    Reply to Sonya's comment

    • Susy on January 24, 2014 at 9:49 am

      I use Aperture, which I also use for photo editing.

      Reply to Susy's comment

  3. Jennifer Fisk on January 24, 2014 at 8:12 am

    I just cleaned out my Dad’s house so in addition to the boxes and drawers of my own photos, I have boxes and albums that were Mom’s and his. Some are of their trips and can easily be culled but many are of family so they stay. I also have photos of ancestors that have no identifiers and Dad isn’t able to tell me. I think these will become my son’s problems before I ever get them straightened out. LOL

    Reply to Jennifer Fisk's comment

  4. Kate on January 24, 2014 at 8:56 am

    As an archivist, I cringed when I read you throw away the originals! I’ve been slowly scanning all of my family’s old photos and slides, but I will never, ever get rid of the originals.

    I hope you might consider keeping the originals, at least the really special ones!

    Digitization is great as a means of access, but not so great for preservation. Digitizating collections is what I do for a living, so I know the pitfalls all too well.

    Reply to Kate's comment

    • KimH on January 24, 2014 at 7:20 pm

      I think you are insane for throwing away photographs.. whatcha gonna do when you have no electricity or your computer crashes and it cant be cracked? Not everything can be recovered.. What if we have an EMP? The government is prepared for WHEN we have one.. not IF we have one.. Im with Kate.. I think its a crying shame.

      That said.. nothing wrong with digitizing and having all your pictures online..I have many of mine online and I sure wish I had had some that got ruined in our kids water fight scanned and online..

      I’ve lost more photos & genealogy though to storing them online than I have otherwise.. I’ve learned my lesson the hard way..

      Reply to KimH's comment

  5. Lorna on January 24, 2014 at 10:01 am

    Perfect timing. My husband just pulled out the boxes and boxes of photos we’ve been dragging around every time we move; time to digitize! I don’t think we’ll get rid of most of the originals, but it would be nice to feel free to get rid of copies, fuzzy pictures or the ones of people/places we just don’t know or remember!

    Reply to Lorna's comment

  6. Nebraska Dave on January 24, 2014 at 10:33 am

    Susy, pictures are the modern day diary. It only takes seconds to go from snapping the picture to posting on facebook. A history of everything in my daughter’s life appears on facebook. Some times I think she forgets that Dad is a friend. I find out allot of things about what’s happening in her life by monitoring her facebook. At 29 years of age she is not under the kid rules any more but it makes for conversation starters when I see her.

    My Mom was the queen of picture taking and organized albums of pictures for each year as far back as I can remember. The first camera I remember was the Kodak Brownie with the big round flash attachment. My sister is the keeper of those albums and any thing we remember has pictures of it some where in those albums. Mom was meticulous about writing under the picture who all the people were in the pictures. It’s definitely a family heirloom. I would say there are probably 40 years of family albums stored away in a bookcase in my sister’s house. Every time I visit I page through a couple. Great way to jog good memories.

    Have a great old photos day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

  7. Tommy on January 24, 2014 at 11:43 am

    Susy, where are you in the soccer picture? Hard to tell from the pic. I love looking at old pictures, and especially to see how people have changed over the years. Thanks for the post.

    Reply to Tommy's comment

  8. Liz J on January 24, 2014 at 5:26 pm

    What a great idea Susy ~ I have boxes of old pictures that would be so much easier to look at on the computer. I also have to mention that I have lost all my digital photos, twice! After the first time my hard drive bit the dust, I bought a plug in drive. The second time my computer had a virus and I found out that not everything I thought was being backed up, was ~ all my documents were, but not my pictures. I then found a prior backup drive and recovered some of them from that. At any rate, that is a really good idea, as well as saving the favorites. Just be very good about backups, or they will be gone forever….Thanks for the post! p.s. what a cute kid you were!

    Reply to Liz J's comment

  9. Susan Tilney on January 25, 2014 at 10:00 am

    Far too many! For years I scrapbooked but, since moving here to Maine I just haven’t been able to find the time. I did, however, find that I could sit down once a month and create a scrapbook on line from that month’s pictures. By December 31, it was done and ready to be uploaded and processed. A week later I had a beautiful scrapbook that took far less time than I used to spend! Digital has been a tremendous boon in paring down and getting things accomplished!

    Now that I can keep up with the year as it rushes headlong to its conclusion, I’m still left wondering how to handle all those images between when we lived in Philly and last year when I “discovered” the ease of digital management! :D I just need a few more hours in each day and a few more days in each week!!

    Reply to Susan Tilney's comment

  10. Sheryl at Providence Acres Farm on January 26, 2014 at 12:15 am

    Yes, way too many! I need to digitalize them too. Good idea!

    Reply to Sheryl at Providence Acres Farm's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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