That photo I used for Photo Friday–of the two dolls: Searching for it led to some interesting discoveries.
I knew I had a photo like it, although the one in my head is not exactly like the one I found. But I also knew it was an older picture. Although the computer I use now has access to all the photos stored on my old PC, when I’m looking for something without a specific date or file location, it can be daunting to approach thousands of photos. The photo I could see in my head seemed to predate the old PC, so I went first to my actual physical photo albums. I have a lot of them, and they’re well organized, but I came up with nothing. Then I have a lot of little random photo albums for pictures that aren’t something anyone would care about looking at–scenery from trips, state of The Compound grounds through the years, bad craft projects, TJB publicity shots. Those albums didn’t have what I was looking for either.
There are several wooden boxes on a shelf in the guest room (also known as the Lisa/Debby Suite) that I never open because they’re a reminder that I’m four years behind in photo organization. (I think a lot of people, like me, now depend heavily on their computer photos instead of having them printed to put into albums.) With trepidation, I started exploring the contents of those boxes.
First, I found a boatload of old family photos that I didn’t know I had. I remember one time my mother made Debby and me sit down with her extensive collection of photos and go through them to take what we wanted. At some point in that process, nostalgia kicked in, and she made us stop. Maybe these are photos that I was given before we stopped, but I don’t think so, because some of them are OLD. As in seventy to eighty years old. And they’re of relatives I don’t know. But some of them are of our immediate family, and those were exciting to rediscover.
I never found the particular doll photo I was seeking. But that’s okay, because: I have a journal that’s been missing for years. I’ve mentioned it on here, usually without identifying what it is, but it’s a journal of thoughts/memories I wrote about my friend Steve after he died. More importantly, it contains my few photos of him. And that journal was in one of those wooden boxes! I can finally stop driving myself crazy over its whereabouts.
During my search, I also found a few more of my mother’s buttons that can be featured on Button Sundays and some TJB-related items I didn’t even remember I had.
I think it’s time for me to take on the project of updating and reorganizing (and yes, to some degree, even purging) my photo and memento collections.
In Mac world, I use Aperture. In Linux I use the file system and gimp. I’m finding that Aperture has some good ideas though. If you have one of those cameras that use GPS data, you can strip that info (and all the tag edits, picture resizing, etc.) as profiled exports of selected library photos. I keep the Linux methods too, because I don’t want to tie myself to Mac if Apple, goes down the tubes now that Steve Jobs died.
I do need to get my hands on a decent negative scanner before my 35 mm library goes poof. There have been some photo Fridays that fit nicely in my 35 mm pics, but no way of getting them onto the computer. Yet.
It all sounds so technical!
I recently spent an entire day going through my iPhoto files on my iMac and ended up deleting 3,000 below par and duplicate pics. That left me with 3,500 still on the computer to sort and categorize. Then there’s about 30 Carousel trays of Kodachrome slides, 50 rolls of 35mm negative film, and a foot square box of my mother’s family photos in the cool depths of my closet. And I’m still always taking pictures! I just realized I’m a photo hoarder.
All I can say is:
http://youtu.be/wZpaNJqF4po
And you say it very musically.
You say “photo hoarder” like it’s a bad thing. (head tilt)
What lovely discoveries.
=)
What a happy discovery!
Thanks–it was a huge relief to find it.