Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Family History Through a Camera Lens

I've seen the back of Tom's head a lot in the past year as he has spent hundreds of hours sitting at the computer, scanning old slides!

He's transferred thousands of pictures to the computer that his dad took from 1949 till the late 60s, and his own slides of Europe during college and the military.   And we haven't even touched the many boxes of photos from our 22 years together, or the notebooks of negatives I put together of my pictures before we met!

Here's the tail end of the last box of old slides, film canisters and camera filters, and the trash basket after one particularly busy evening.



As I look at the scanned slides on the screen, I am impressed with the record these pictures provide.  Tom's family life unfolds before me, from the early days till the grandchildren came along.  I see family trips, houses where they lived, their children and their cousins growing up -- these are sweet memories for Tom and his siblings.  His dad had a wonderful sense of art and snapped some exquisite nature shots.  Friends from church and the community come to life on the computer screen.  Over the years changes in clothing, hairstyles and technology are documented.  What history!

Here are just a few of the results of Tom's unflagging dedication to a task that has brought him great joy and has introduced me more fully to the family I married into.









2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful! I love all the old shots with the blossoms, and the rocket! I feel for Tom, I am about 8 months behind on our digital files, and have just started to scratch the surface of the pile of negatives..

Ginger Kauffman said...

Good luck to you, Adam. It's been a huge job for Tom, but he's worked away at it, a little at a time, that is whenever he's won the It's-my-turn-on-the-computer-now Lottery!

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