Restoring Memories

Nowadays with digital cameras and cell phones we create so many digital photographs we dont look at them, with millions of photos forgotten soon after they are taken.  How many selfies does one actually need?  The problem with modern photography is that the images taken tend to only exist in the ether.  My camera will take up to 60 frames per second... that's a lot of photos.  Seems like overkill for most applications.  In the film days, that was almost 2 rolls of 36.  In the past with film, the images were recorded on a medium (the negative and print) that was also served as the storage medium.  Now you need hard drives and back ups to ensure your images are preserved.  How many people print their images?  Some of them?  Any of them?

My Grandfather playing cards in the late 1950's with Skipper the dog

While I like printing images it takes time and is expensive (actually it was always expensive), almost nobody does it. This creates two dilemmas.  One, you aren't going to accidentally come across your photos because they are buried in some long lost directory from long ago.  Two, if you pass, what will those you leave behind have to remember you with?

My dad in the late 50's, early 60's on a road trip to Niagara falls

On my recent trip to England, my aunt showed me lots of images of my dad and my grandfather, many of which I had never seen.  They were awesome.  I didn't have a scanner so I laid out a whole bunch of them and took images with my camera.  They turned out well.  A second generation image is better than none at all.

Even more interesteing was that earlier tonight my wife and I were going through a bunch of photographs from my wife's dad's house (we finally sold it) and were admiring all the photos.  Promising to review them all but not really having the time or the inclination to go through all of them.  They are fascinating products of a bygone era where our relationships with photographs were so different.  For instance, people rarely smiled because photographs were serious stuff.  These images were from when Edmonton was still a pretty new frontier town.

My wife's family probably in the 1940's

I really like fixing these images, which gives me insight into times long ago.  I'm not ready to try colourizing a photo (that is way too much work) but I can fix colour shifts, scratches and blotches.  I have gotten really good at it.

Maybe one of these days I will go through my own film photos......