Monday, November 5, 2012

Converting slides and finding treasures

One of my on-going projects that I have had for about a year now is going through all of my dad's slides and converting them to digital. He has thousands of slides, and each slide has to be done individually, which takes about 2 minutes (per slide). I absolutely LOVE doing it. Its like a treasure hunt, because I literally never know what I'll find on the next slide. Yesterday, I had a chunk of time, so I thought I would start in on another batch. The box had "Grand Canyon - 1959-1966" on it. I converted slide after slide that looked like this:

1966

Lovely photos, but at this point I am really looking for the slides with people in them. I am converting all of them, no matter what they have on them, but it is much more exciting when I find some familiar old faces. While scanning the slides, I number the slide and enter the information on each one on a spreadsheet, so it will be nice and easy in the future to look at that spreadsheet and just pull all the photos that have Grandma and Grandpa in them, or whoever I may want photos of at the time. I've just passed 1200 slides, which doesn't seem like that many, I know. I have so many more to go, but like I said, I love doing it. Just wish I had a bit more time to carve out for it. I'm hoping to get at least one reel done a week from here on in.

Here is why I love doing this project so much.  Just when I was getting a little tired of the Grand Canyon scenery, this one popped up on the computer:

1959

This right here is why I'm doing this project. There is something about a photo like this, of my Grandma and Grandpa, that is absolutely priceless to me. It was a pretty dark photo -- one you wouldn't have been able to see by just looking through the slide. I lightened it up a bit with FotoFlexer. I'm sure a professional could do a better job, but I'm loving this for now!

And then this one appeared...

1959

This one if of my aunts, cousin, and Grandma again (with her pretty little hat). I love this one, too. Such a wonderful time -- dresses, hats and beads.

1959

I couldn't resist throwing this one in. Three of my sisters are in that mix. I love how every one of the kids (except the cutie in the red coat -- one of my sisters) is squinting, and pulling hillarious faces. It makes your eyes water just looking at it. The little one in the blue coat was pretty smart hiding behind the girl in front of her.

It makes me want to dive into a new batch of slides....

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