"We found my grandparents' wedding album."

Have you experienced the curiosity that awakens when looking through a bunch of old family photos? The clothes, the cars, the vaguely familiar faces. I have a bit of a weakness for old photos. I get lost in them whether the faces are familiar or not.

I just finished scanning a wedding album for a family whose grandparents were married in 1957. The album itself is starting to crack and fall apart. But the photos inside are still in great condition. Each page is filled with a peek into that beautiful winter wedding 65 years ago.

Early black and white photographs will last a very, very long time. But they surely won't last forever. And they fade, just like color photos do. Add in the risk of damage from pests, moisture or disaster, it is hard to predict how long a printed photo will last.

This family is so lucky to have these photos and I am so happy that they hired to me to preserve them in a digital copy. They will have a high-resolution copy of each photo, the cover and the wedding invitation saved on a USB drive to be shared with the rest of the family. From there, we may make modern printed copies of the wedding album so that more family members can enjoy the photos or print a few to place in a special frame.

Let's get started on your photo projects soon!

email: amy@recollectphotomanager.com

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20 years of digital

Did you know that your digital photo collection may go back 20 years? 2003 is the year that digital cameras surpassed film in sales. And even though I was working as a photographer and teaching photography at that time, I was shocked to realize it has already been 20 years since we made that transition from 24 frames on a roll of film to hundreds of jpegs files on our memory cards.

Do you remember which camera, computer or print service you used in the early days of digital? I had a Canon point and shoot that used CompactFlash memory cards, a Dell PC that could burn CDs and I used Snapfish for any online print orders.

Although I am proud that I am able to remember these random details from 20 years ago, the real point is that many of these items are all but obsolete. The CompactFlash memory cards, while still being manufactured, are not nearly as popular as SD cards. A cd or dvd player in a computer is no longer the standard. And my Snapfish account lapsed sometime around the time my son was born in 2010. The deadline for recovering photos from CDs and other old media formats closes in on us rapidly and before we know it we are scrambling to find a way to access these photos. If you don't have a working device to read a cd or old memory card, your photos are essentially "lost".

Not everyone has 20 years worth of digital photos, but every year of digital photography has the potential for thousands of files. My first step in any photo organizing project is to gather all digital files into one location so they can be sorted and backed up. If you have photos on CDs, old memory cards, old computers, phones, tablets or other devices, I can help you recover and save them in one place - using one device that is compatible with 2023.

Contact amy@recollectphotomanager.com for information on my digital photo organization service.

What is a Photo Manager?

As a long time photo teacher and photographer, I am never surprised by new ideas in the world of photography. I grew up with 110 and disc cameras, graduated to 35mm in my preteen years and got my first lessons in darkroom printing in college. Right about that time, Adobe introduced Photoshop. We didn't care much about Photoshop in 1997 and thought that digital art would never compare to "real art". 25 years later, the reverse is true. Digital photography has become the standard and the norm. Film is a luxury and a niche area, but I'm happy to say it is making a comeback because my students are hooked on the magic of the darkroom!

35mm darkroom print of Buckeye School taken in 1997 for college Photography 101.

But cell phone cameras rule. Fewer people own cameras that aren't built into a phone, yet more people are taking photos than ever before. The average person takes approximately 175 photos a month which means roughly 2000 photos per year. And when it comes to a lifetime of photos, we are now looking at upwards of 100,000 photos that document a lifetime of milestones and memories. What do we do with these images? How do we make sure that a few of these thousands of photos make it out of the cloud and on to the next generation? This is where a photo manager takes the lead.

To date, I have taken 3920 photos on my iPhone in 2022

Over the next few weeks I will be introducing the concept of a photo manager to many of you for the first time. Curating, organizing and preserving digital and print photographs is a growing concern for anyone who takes pictures. Photo managers take the worry and the overwhelm out of their customer's hands.

Follow me as I work to preserve my family photos, dig deeper into the business of photo management and expand on my love of photography.