Okay so while working on my Digital Filing Cabinet Project (Digital Filing Cabinet Part One & Digital Filing Cabinet Part Two) I found a lot of old photo’s that predated the Digital era. Some of them I struggled to remember where and when I had taken them, others I couldn’t remember who the people were. Well, this simply wouldn’t do! So I scanned them in and headed off to my parents for Sunday lunch.
While we were catching up and generally putting the world to rights my Mum handed me some photo’s that she had taken recently and printed out. We looked at the pictures, which happened to be of my Niece and Nephew and found ourselves comparing them to my sister and I when we were younger. This led to some of the hundreds of photo’s my parents have being dragged out from the dark hiding places they have lived for years.
This got me thinking! I bet we have thousands of pictures between us that predate the digital era that are important in remembering some very significant events and more importantly some very important people that are no longer with us. We remember them now but who will remember them in future? Who will tell my Niece and Nephew about these people and places?
So the “Family Photo Archive Project” was born! The aim of this project is to scan and store as many of the family’s old photo’s as possible and record who the people are and where they were taken.
This is going to be a long term project, but one that I am sure will be worth while and will also allow me to learn a little more about photography and image manipulation, and area I have been keen to learn more about for a while. Once I have got up to speed I will open this up to other family members, allowing them to contribute there own photo’s and memories.
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Hi Mark,
Well, there are some things you could check or try out. In my case I've been using Apple's Aperture to organise my Digital Photo's. In aperture I have set up a Hierarchy of KeyWords for Family and Friends, for example :
Friends
Surname
Firstname
Family
Surname
Firstname
In my case it would look like this :
Family
Lesage
Stefaan (me)
Jens (my son)
Van de Veire
Tania (my wife)
Bjorn (Brother in Law)
Freddy (my wife's father)
Vergeyle
Greta (my wife's mother)
…
and so on.
Second I set up a few Buttons to tag my photo's for the same stuff, so I have a set of photos for Family and a set for Friends. Each button set has room for 12 buttons, which in my case is enough for our 'Close family'.
Once I've imported my pictures into the Library, I can quickly page through them and apply the corresponding Keywords. What's so powerful about the Hierarchical Keywords is that whenever I apply Stefaan to a picture, it impilitely also gets the Lesage and Family tag applied.
In my project I then have different Smart Albums to display all pictures of my son, my wife or me using the keywords.
Not sure if this helps you in any way, but that's how I organize our family pictures.
Regards,
Stefaan
Thanks Stefaan, I have been meaning to test out Aperture for a while now and I think this is the perfect project for that but at £126 it's quite an investment. The way I am thinking of starting this is by using iPhoto (locally) and Flickr (online) and seeing if I can get a trial or something.
Thanks for the input however and I'll keep you posted on the progress, if you have any other thoughts let me know.
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You''re entering the dark realms of the science known as Digital Asset Management now Mark!
In that arena you can''t go far wrong with Peter Krough''s The DAM Book – Digital Asset Management for Photographers. It contains everything you''ll ever need to know about collating and cataloging digital media.
The first edition is still available but just days ago the second edition was released by O''Reilly Press – http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596523572/
Treat yourself to some light bedtime reading
Elaine
Thanks Elaine, I''ll be sure to check that out.
[...] been paying attention you won’t know about the Family Photo Archive Project (“Family Photo Archive Project Part One” & “Family Photo Archive Project Part [...]
[...] week editing some video for work and working on the “Family Photo Archive Project” (Family Photo Archive Project Part One & Family Photo Archive Project Part Two) and found myself torn between getting on with the [...]
[...] been wanting to get on with for some time, such as my “Family Photo Archive Project” (Family Photo Archive Project Part One & Family Photo Archive Project Part Two). Did you find this useful? Maybe [...]