[billethkid]

Does anybody else have many, many, MANY photo albums and other boxes and boxes of photos from over the years?

We have been trying to pare down, give away, throw away and consolidate and when we get done we still have many albums and at least not so many boxes of other photos.

Are we the only ones who hoard the past?

Thank GOD for the digital age of photography. Makes it much easier to manage and sort going forward.

[OBXNana]

We are going through the same thing and what do you do? I have everything from pictures that fortunately both parents marked with names and the relationship to me to albums from my grandmother's 1918 bridal shower. Our daughter thoroughly loves to go through all these boxes. We are moving them with us when we downsize. Do any of your children have an interest?

We have boxes of slides my father took. All neatly in rows in boxes meant for slides. He was a photographer in WWII. We're going to go through them one by one, after retirement, and see if there are any that may be of interest to a history buff.

What we've decided to do after retirement is take all our VCR tapes from family events and convert them to CD. Each one of our children will get a copy and we will pitch the tapes.

I have no problem getting rid of an antique from my family once I've asked our children if they want the item. I would rather it be enjoyed by a perfect stranger than sit in an attic. The pictures are personal and I am having trouble disposing of any of them and look forward to other peoples responses.

[villagetinker]

I have been scanning photos in to the computer, and giving away some of the photos to relatives, children and grandchildren. So far have reduced 6 large boxes of photos to 1.5 boxes. The records are another question. It takes a LOT of time to transfer these, so I think I am just going to go through the albums, and find the tracks I like, and just buy these in digital form and give away the records. Thank god no more movies, gave these away before we moved.

[Loudoll]

Originally Posted by OBXNana

We are going through the same thing and what do you do? I have everything from pictures that fortunately both parents marked with names and the relationship to me to albums from my grandmother's 1918 bridal shower. Our daughter thoroughly loves to go through all these boxes. We are moving them with us when we downsize. Do any of your children have an interest?

We have boxes of slides my father took. All neatly in rows in boxes meant for slides. He was a photographer in WWII. We're going to go through them one by one, after retirement, and see if there are any that may be of interest to a history buff.

What we've decided to do after retirement is take all our VCR tapes from family events and convert them to CD. Each one of our children will get a copy and we will pitch the tapes.

I have no problem getting rid of an antique from my family once I've asked our children if they want the item. I would rather it be enjoyed by a perfect stranger than sit in an attic. The pictures are personal and I am having trouble disposing of any of them and look forward to other peoples responses.

Wish you would scan and post the bridal shower picture. I would love to see it. thanks.

[eweissenbach]

Originally Posted by billethkid

Does anybody else have many, many, MANY photo albums and other boxes and boxes of photos from over the years?

We have been trying to pare down, give away, throw away and consolidate and when we get done we still have many albums and at least not so many boxes of other photos.

Are we the only ones who hoard the past?

Thank GOD for the digital age of photography. Makes it much easier to manage and sort going forward.

We have the same issue. Boxes and boxes of old albums and photos that need to be organized. My wife will open one up occasionally, spend a few hours going over everything and emerge with tears in her eyes.

[Madelaine Amee]

I had a very rude awakening when we downsized. We had an attic full of ours and their lives (the children), I asked my son to come and help me clean out the attic and take whatever he wanted for his family. I had every report card from all their school years, medical reports, even had their baby teeth, and I also had their baby clothes. My son went up into the attic - it was 103 degrees up there - I stood down in the hallway and suddenly boxes and bags of "stuff" came flying out of the attic and it all ended up in the dumpster.

The antiques and furniture they did want, so I still get to visit those when I go back North.

The boxes of photos I took to the oldest son and left them there - he actually put a lot of the photos onto computer discs and I have no idea what happened to the rest.

[Beth P]

I just completed this process in prep for our move to TV in February. I threw out a lot of old photos that just weren't of good quality...unless I didn't have anything else from that particular event. I bought photo boxes and filed all pictures by year and got it down to six photo boxes. Then I bought a 12x12 box for each family members memorabilia. Again, threw out a lot of old kids art work but saved some precious poems and notes which will be great at their rehearsal dinners! It was fun taking the trip down memory lane.

[zonerboy]

I, too, have many, many boxes of old photos along with carefully organized albums. These have not been looked at since we moved to The Villages three years ago. They just sit and occupy closet space. Much too hot to store them in the attic. Gave lots more away to each child before we moved.
But kids these days don't seem all that interested in print photos. So I suppose if I don't toss them out soon, the kids will just toss them in the dumpster after I'm dead. That seems to be the reality of things.

[redwitch]

I wish I had my childhood photos. We had a fire shortly after my father died and lost most of the photos. While my daughter is not a fan of photographs, she does enjoy looking at what little Mom could save, especially those in the putter.

Please have your photos digitalized and safely stored. The memories can be shared and treasured by many generations to come. The loss is gut wrenching.

[gomoho]

Originally Posted by redwitch

I wish I had my childhood photos. We had a fire shortly after my father died and lost most of the photos. While my daughter is not a fan of photographs, she does enjoy looking at what little Mom could save, especially those in the putter.

Please have your photos digitalized and safely stored. The memories can be shared and treasured by many generations to come. The loss is gut wrenching.

Thanks Red - I think you perfectly described why we cherish all those boxes of photos we all seem to have. Furniture, books, jewelry can all somehow be replaced, but not that precious picture of someone you love. I throw just about everything away but have kept not only my photos, but the ones I have from my mom. Buy a couple of good sized Rubbermaid type containers and store them in a closet. Easy for me to say 'cause I have lots of room 'cause I don't hold onto much else!

[jnieman]

This year was my husband's mother's 90th birthday party. We were all asked to go through our photos and pull out select ones. My hubby scanned them. That started a huge project. He decided to go through all of our photos and scan the best and throw out the rest. We have a great scanner on our printer so it was fast and easy. He scanned all total of 1200 photos. He put them in order also. Now we have them all on a thumb drive. We threw out 18 photo albums full of photos. Most were showing age. I went through the newly scanned ones and using picassa was able to enhance them very nicely. We just came back from a trip to my son's house where we presented him with his copy of the thumb drive. We sat and went through a slide show of all of the photos. He was so excited to have them all. This project took my husband about 6 weeks in his spare time.

[GeoGeo]

I need to scan all my photos. Have been putting this off for years. I drag the boxes out and end up putting them back. Does anyone have suggestions on scanning them....what dpi to use, etc. And how to store them. Alot of them are just loose in large Rubbermaid storage containers. Any suggestions appreciated.

[jnieman]

To me one of the most important things before starting a large project such as this is to make sure you have really good scanning equipment. We have an HP Photosmart 6520 printer with scanner/copier/fax. You can buy it on Amazon for around $100. It did an awesome job of scanning the photos. You'll need to use the desktop software that comes with it instead of pushing the scan button on the printer itself. That way you can remove old borders from the photos and you can enhance the photo as you crop it. Very easy to use. We used our guest room as the staging area. Layed out photos on the bed and put them in the order we wanted to scan them. We kept only one of each shot (the best one) and threw away the rest. We used the computer to store them initially but once they were finished we made several copies of the entire set onto several thumb drives. Put one in the safe and gave one to our son. Kept one to play the photos on our big TV. You will be so glad you did it.

[jblum315]

I gave my 3 oldest albums to my son for his two boys to get a sense of their family. So now I only have a couple of albums plus one largish box of photos that I should scan but probably will never get around to it. My daughter has about a million family photos. So when they're gone, they're gone.

[OldManTime]

Originally Posted by billethkid

Does anybody else have many, many, MANY photo albums and other boxes and boxes of photos from over the years?

We have been trying to pare down, give away, throw away and consolidate and when we get done we still have many albums and at least not so many boxes of other photos.

Are we the only ones who hoard the past?

Thank GOD for the digital age of photography. Makes it much easier to manage and sort going forward.

I over the years neatly put all my photo's neatly onto 20 some off scrap books, and a few years ago, pulled all out and scanned them in to my computers, made CD copies, took a while, then put all into a 10lb box, and mailed them to my eldest daughter. I now digitize all my photo's