These days it is very easy to scan 35mm slides and convert them into digital files for archiving and printing. As mentioned, I have hundreds and hundreds of slides, but I can tell you right now that I am never going to scan them all.
Instead, I am going to go through them, organize and file many of the less important slides in bulk archival storage boxes, and select the very best and most important slides for scanning so that I can print them and back them up on high quality DVDs (click here for more information). A reference print will accompany the actual 35mm slides that will then go into archival pages and binders, while the digital files will be printed, added as “hard copies” to the rest of my family’s ongoing archive, and sent out to various family members for their own family archives.
With all this I am ensuring the survival of my original photographic “artifacts” (i.e. the slides) while permanently retiring the need for slide projectors and such. The best images will be printed and shared, and in so doing these people and events—most long dead and forgotten—will live again for generations to come.
Its a good thing, methinks.
Well, with 8mm films and 35mm slides out of the way, its now time to consider the single largest component of my (and probably your) family archive—snapshots.
Fortunately, while perhaps seeming like a truly daunting task from the outset, the whole process of sorting / identifying / archivally displaying and storing all my zillions of family snapshots can be broken down into manageable, do-able mini-projects. If the “wonder of discovery” is anything like that expereinced while working through my family’s slides, this promises to be QUITE the adventure.
So, with that, its on to:
Part 8: Snapshots – Photo Albums
(BTW – got a question thus far? Got a particularly challenging archival / preservation / presentation / organizational / storage nut that just won’t crack? Don’t know what’s what re: your personal archive or collection? Post a comment or contact us. We’ll get ya through it!)
(Archivalmethods)