Where have all the photos gone?

We take more photos now than we ever did.  They cost us nothing;  we just use our digital camera or mobile phone or other device and snap away.  Sometimes we put it online, but very often it merely stays on our computer or phone.  One day we realise there are thousands of photos, and yet almost none that we can simply and easily browse through.

Technology changes, computers crash, and maybe one day, we can find our photos gone.  But photos are our history.  They are important, and while we don't need thousands, we should keep some, if not for ourselves, for our descendants.

And this is why I think we need to revisit photograph albums.

I started thinking about this when I inherited some old photo albums from my parents.  But the photo corners, (remember them?)  had lost their stickiness, and photos were falling out.

I had other albums, more recent, the type with sticky pages.  But they don't last even as long as the ones with photo corners do.  The pages crinkle and they, also, lose their stickiness.  They needed redoing if I was going to keep them.

I did not keep all of those albums with their photos.  Mere 'just scenery' did not make the cut for redoing and keeping, and neither did one with a lot of  pictures of a very young baby.  Tiny babies tend to all look the same to anyone except for their doting mum. Those photos are now in an envelope, not discarded.  The landscape photos have been mostly thrown out.

We are so lucky now.  Old photos can be scanned, sharpened, the contrast increased, lightened or darkened, irrelevant bits cut off,  even people you no longer like, cut out.  Old coloured photographs that have turned reddish and faded can be improved.

Camera - slides,  (50s)
 Brownic Box Camera (50s)
Instamatic (60s)   

Slides can be printed, though it costs a lot if you want to do many.  And yet, for some, it is worthwhile. I have some charming images that have been taken from some slides from the 50s.

Left:  I think that child has a daisy chain around her ankle.



Right:  unknown kids

There are older photos, sometimes of poor quality, but important, all the same.

There are those even older, from the 20s and 30s.  These tend to be black and white, yellowed,. and often very small.  And even these can be improved, a precious memory of ancestors.

This photograph is quite poignant  - the pensive child holding the baby, a baby who looks sick or maybe half starved.

(In case, you were wondering,  the baby grew up to be an uncle, if not a father.)

The albums that belonged to my parents have been redone, putting it all in one album.  It became like a biography, the story of two people, linked for many years in life.   

The last photograph is a picture of the place where their ashes were combined and scattered.  The dates of their births and deaths are noted.

It is a biography in pictures. 

Another person I know did a similar thing with his old pictures.  The photos are old (60s)  but the album is new.   

So think about your photos.  Make sure and print some.  I know that special occasions such as the birth of a new babe,  and weddings, of course, are often celebrated with a ferociously expensive professional album.  Since we can all take good photos these days, so easily, and then amend them if necessary, I regard that as somewhat extravagant.  Nice, but not necessary. 

But what about all the other photos that just stay on your phone?  It is important that at least some are printed.  And the most important should be printed in black and white as well as in colour. Black and white photographs last longer.

I started wondering if my photograph albums were akin to the 'scrapbooking' hobby that became fashionable some years ago.  But a quick look at some sites dissuaded me.  The scrapbooks I saw were not the sentimental mementos of important occasions that I had envisaged, but a quite sophisticated art form.  

You don't have to be an artist.  Just make sure you have some photo albums to browse through.  

Old fashioned?  Doesn't matter.  One day you will be pleased you took the trouble.