I might have titled this post "Finding New/Old Photo Gems."
I know – I said I wouldn’t start anything new until I had
completed some unfinished work, but this “new” project has been on my “to do”
list for twenty years, and now is the time to make a start. We have at least
two lifetimes of slides in storage. Amongst them are the slides my dad took of
family events – probably 20 years of them – and these images will be meaningful
to my whole extended family – and we have the slides that Mike took to
mark the progress of our children from babyhood to adult. This is one huge,
unfinished project that needs to be addressed, and I am stepping up to it.
I told the associate at Staples that I was looking for a
slide scanner. I specified that I didn’t want a complicated system but at the
same time I would hope for some quality. First he showed me an Epson
combination slide and paper scanner. My eyes must have glazed over because he
looked at me thoughtfully and led me to another model. “I’ve had my eye on this
one,” he said, showing me a compact “ION” that scans only slides, “and have
considered buying it for myself because it just looks easy. I’ve sold a number
of them and no one has come back to say whether or not they like it.” He added
that the scanning seemed simple, but he wasn’t sure about the quality.
I could have left it there, read more reviews, talked to
Mike, etc., but I’ve been doing all of that for years. So – without further
discussion, hemming and hawing, I said I’d take it.
Anything that feels like it’s me alone with my computer is
apt to put me over the edge, and indeed I was on the cusp. Suddenly I got cold feet.
“What if I don’t like it,” I asked. “Take it home and try it,” insisted the associate. “If you
don’t like it, bring it back. You have 14 days.”
So, I brought it home, read the simple instructions, installed
the software, attached the scanner to my laptop, retrieved the copy paper box
marked “Dobson Slides” from the garage, and set to work. It’s easy to set up the
little scanner and so I can work frequently for short periods of time.
You know, we took pictures on slide film for years, and even
though I spoke fervently to both my dad and Mike about the uselessness of the
slide medium, my complaints fell on deaf ears. They saw slides as a relatively
inexpensive way to record family events, but this system allowed for only infrequent
viewing of our pictures. We seldom had slides developed into photos. And the
medium also influenced the type of pictures we took – very few candid
snapshots.
Mike, on the other hand, had a Kodak projector using
carousels, and that was a simpler process but still imperfect. We found it
desirable for storage purposes to have carousels that held a large number of
slides, but we discovered that those didn’t operate smoothly through the
projector. Frustrating! We were always watching for a deal on carousels, and if
we were out of carousels, we waited for a sale. I think it was about 1990 when
Mike found someone who was discarding many carousels, and for a minimal amount,
we bought about twenty. “Why is she discarding these,” I asked in my innocence.
KW
[The top picture was taken in the dining room at the farmhouse. My dad's younger sister is celebrating her 51st birthday in September 1961. I'm standing beside her (12 years old), as my mother watches. The bottom picture is Christmas 1961 -- Becky Reece, Polly Profitt, L.J. Reece, and Kyle Walrath.] KW
Great pictures! Sadly, we also have pictures on slides, as do (did?) Mom and Dad. Hmmm... Dan does have a slide scanner that he uses for his business as they used to use slides for meetings and conferences.
ReplyDeleteNow, what I really want to know is who was wearing what looks like a fancy pair of black high heels in the pictures of the kids? Whoever it was really had their attention. (And those shoes look really cool!)
Slides could be a hassle. You can easily grab a photo album and leaf through it with a visiting relative as you remember old times (and old relatives). Asking a visitor to watch a slide show might produce groans & rolled eyes. Good luck on this project, Kathy. Your slides are important keepsakes.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure your dad (& Mike) wanted to have pictures of the family and thanks to them, you do. Look at it this way...if they didn't take those slides, you'd have nothing. Yes, it's time consuming to convert them, but the end result will be worth it.
My father bought an 8mm movie camera & projector around 1939. I was 2 years old. He chronicled simple everyday life in the family. I hugged a snowman, kissed a neighbor boy (and he wiped his mouth off right after), splashed in a large metal wash tub (1930's version of backyard pool) & paraded with my mother in matching mother daughter dresses when I was 4. My mother & father played horseshoes, my uncles made funny faces, my cousin's dad smiled (the only image of him smiling) & we went to the zoo. Really ordinary stuff, right?
An aunt told me after I was grown that she didn't approve of my father buying the movie camera because it was so expensive.
In 2008, I spent 260 hrs. editing my father's movies at our Video Lab in the Village. The films were copied into a digital format. Using computer software, I began work on a DVD. I chose to ID people with an overlay of their name when they appeared on screen. Respecting the original silent film, I didn't add voice overs to explain things. What I did was add about 8 title pages with words the people "might be" saying (ala silent film style). Visitors to the Lab were told that my movie began 69 years ago. I felt like a "show & tell" display.
Music from the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird" was used to set the mood. Other music was "Our Town" & The Red Pony" by Aaron Copland. Sound effects...clanking of the horseshoes hitting the post, old car engine starting, zebra braying, etc were added. Sound effects are timed down to the millisecond. There are 16 frames per second in 8mm & if the sound is off...well it's not good.
Mother died in 2007 at age 87 & my father in 1973 at age 59. All the adults were dead. The only ones living were the children. Seeing my parents when they were so young was a very emotional experience. I shed many a tear as I worked on this precious archive. My interest in genealogy gave me an idea about an epilogue. I've seen movies that have an update about the characters (in a true story) at the end. I made a separate title page for 11 people. I copied a frame of the person from the film and added it to their page. Then I wrote a little bio giving their occupation, where they lived and when they died. "Real movies" have credits at the end and mine did, too. The "actors" were listed by name and relationship. The places filmed and the titles of the music were chronicled. My father was given the cinematographer title & I was the editor.
I spent 260 hrs. editing the 42 min. film. Copies were made for a select few family members and then I collapsed.
Everyone that saw the movie all approved of my father buying the movie camera and I do, too.
Is Shirley cutting the cake with the candles burning or is that an illusion?
ReplyDeleteLeah -- LOL. You're right! So Aunt Shirley to cut the cake before blowing out the candles. Probably explains the expression on Mother's face. It looks like she might be thinking, "Just what's going to happen here?" I think the cake is heart-shaped. I expect Mother baked it in town and we carried it to the farm for a birthday dinner.
ReplyDeleteI love this picture because we have so few taken in the interior of the house.