Family Photos

I got a 500 gig external hard drive back in October when I started digitizing my family's old photos. The hard drive holds nothing but family photos and movies so you can imagine my surprise when I went to back up the last bunch that I've been working on and there wasn't enough room to store them all!

500 gigs of old photos and videos is a lot- those files aren't huge like our 12 megapixel cameras or HD video cameras now days. That hard drive holds literally thousands of old photos and about 10 years worth of home videos. Going through so many photos all at once has been a different experience than I expected. I didn't realize how much I'd learn about keeping a family history through images. Since I certainly hope none of you will ever have the 'opportunity' to be stuck in bed for months on end, unable to do anything but digitize 40 years of family photos, I thought I'd share a couple interesting things I've learned.

Photos
My new goal: Take pictures of people, places and things that make up every day life rather than focusing on a the main events.

If you're like me, you'll probably make sure to grab your camera at big events like birthdays and Christmas and then just happen to take a few shots in between. Those times seem like the most important at the time, but as my Mom and I went through our old slides it was amazing to see how, while we enjoyed looking at the birthday and Christmas pictures, the pictures we LOVED were the ones that reminded us of what every day life was like. My personal favorites were of me sitting and playing in my doll house (my favorite toy growing up) or standing in my bedroom which was a disaster of toys spewing from every corner. I could have easily see my mom thinking- we're not getting a picture of that mess of a room! But I'm so glad she did- seeing all my old favorite things brought back so many memories and seeing my room like that reminded me of what life was really like and how I used to think.

Additionally, while it was great to find a few beautifully composed shots that were worthy of a frame on our living room wall, my favorite pictures were those that included places we'd been, friends I played with or things we did. A lot of those pictures were blurry or had bad lighting. Of course it would have been nice to have a beautiful shot of those things, but I'm glad no one threw away what we did have just because the picture wasn't perfect.

Videos
My New Goals: (1)Take more videos (2) Interact with those on camera rather than just sitting back and watching an event (3) Make a 'Day in the life' video every few years

(1)We digitized all the photos and then moved to video. After looking through all those photos I thought I understood what life was like back when I was little and couldn't remember many details. But I was so wrong! As soon as I watched those old home movies it was like I'd stepped into our old lives for a few minutes. Photos are great, but there is just nothing like a home movie! Photos capture a moment, but videos capture life and feeling. I've always kind of put home videos into a 'less important' category below photos. I felt like no one ever got them out and watched them, but honestly- how often do we pull out the old photo albums? For me, this digitizing process was the first time in my entire life for both, so I'd say that reasoning doesn't really work for my any more. Video is my new number one.

(2) We have so many hours of birthdays and Christmas and football games (those three things were just about equally important in our family- with football slightly above the rest.) And again, they're fun to watch. But then every once in a while my dad would pull one of us aside and ask us a few questions- How did the game go? Tell me about that great play you made. What was your favorite present this Christmas? etc. I enjoyed watching the 'interviews' so much more than anything else.

(3) Day in the Life video. Back in '87 my parents didn't own a video camera so they rented one for one day. We did a 'day in the life' video where we just kept the camera going for the whole day. My dad interviewed each of us, asking how old we were and what we liked to do best. He filmed us jumping in the leaves, going to Bill's football game and helping our mom make dinner. It feels like you walk right into our house and spend the day with us. I felt like of all the years of videos I've gone through- that year was documented the best. And it was the year when we only had a camera for one day. As we watched it we thought about how great it would have been if we'd done that every 5 years or so- just to see how the dynamics of our family life had changed as we all grew up.

Organization
My new goal: Download, back up and organize as I go

My parents had VHS tapes and mini video tapes and those half sized video tapes all waiting to be copied. The VHS tapes were easy-since that was a very common technology for so long you don't have any problem digitizing those to a DVD. But the other tapes that were made specifically for a video camera were harder. My goal is just to get all our photos and videos to the most common technology. That way in 20 years when we want to update it to the newest thing it will be easier to do.

Also, for as much time as it took to digitize everything, it took longer to organize it all. You don't have to go crazy with organization, just keep all the things from one year together. In a folder on your computer, in a big box in your closet- it doesn't matter. It doesn't need to be beautifully scrapbooked or perfectly edited. It just needs to be together.

Last of all, because everything is digital now things are SO easy to lose. I was so excited to see that there are very affordable external hard drives now that back everything up automatically. And they have tons of memory so you won't have to worry about them getting full for a long time. All you have to do is plug them into your computer, take a few minutes to set things up, and then for the rest of time that hard drive will back up all your stuff all by itself. Amazing!