Today we're honoring technology, both old and new, to help tell our family stories. We love working with old and new formats, and digital technology has helped us improve, restore, and share our old photographs with wide audiences more efficiently and cheaply.
Remember these? 35 mm negatives from a point-and-shoot camera that we had developed at a local drugstore in the mid-1990s. Back then, we printed doubles in order to give them away to our friends. When more than one person wanted a copy of the picture, we held the plastic sleeve up to the overhead light, noted which frame number we needed to copy, and wrote the number of copies we wanted in the appropriate numbered box on the paper re-ordering sleeve.
Now we can scan these negatives into our computer, develop them through software, and edit them for color, lighting, dust and scratches. We have more control over the process, and I imagine the kids today wouldn't be able to understand the reordering process described above. We can share the digital files at once with hundreds of friends and family at the click of a button. While we miss some parts of the process - the excitement at picking up previously unseen photos, the reveal when we opened up the package in front of our friends - we thoroughly embrace the power of technology to preserve our photos and share them with a whole new generation.
October is Family History Month here in the US! In honor of the month, we'll attempt to post family stories, short narratives, and photos daily. We know how difficult it can be to get your family history started! We encourage our readers to simply start - even if your stories are out of chronological order, even if you only have 15 minutes a day, and even if the story is at first imperfect, try to capture one moment or story at a time. If you'd like more tailored guidance or assistance developing your snippets into full stories, we would love to help you with our Writing Coaching Service, and Narrative Transcription which can be done in-person, or remotely over email, phone, Skype/FaceTime sessions.