I am fortunate enough to have a significant collection of pictures from my parents, grandparents, one great-grandmother, and one of my grandfather’s sisters. Some are in albums with paper mounts, some are in the nefarious
“sticky” albums, some are in albums with deteriorating plastic sheets, some are in the original folders, and some are in frames. I have boxes of these materials.
Organization, storage, identification, and preservation are my goals. The photographs are somewhat organized by family based on how I obtained them and how they were stored by the individual who had them before me. Some are identified, some are not. Some of the unidentified ones are of individuals who were known to me.
I’ve decided to prioritize. My first goal is to make digital images of the ones without identification so that they can be shared with relatives who may know who is shown in the photograph. I have decided to upload these images in the cloud where some individuals should be able to access them and make annotations. For other relatives I will find other ways to share the images with them based on their access to technology and general health, etc. Identification is paramount and my highest priority. My organization of these images will parallel the organization of the photographs currently as I plan to store them in essentially the same organization I obtained them in–this is largely because there is context to the way in which they came to me. I want to preserve that context.
I’ve decide to “de-frame” at some point in the near future those relatively recent photographs that are in rather inexpensive frames of the dime-store variety. There is only so much room and efficient storage is a necessity. I also plan on returning to family members who are interested duplicate copies I have of some photographs. Because of how I obtained these pictures I have duplicate and triplicate copies of some high school graduation pictures, wedding pictures, etc. There’s no reason to keep duplicates of these and giving them to others helps to preserve them by “spreading them around.”
We will continue to post about the pictures as my progress continues.
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