Our Photos Are Disappearing
Slides being organized and prepared for scanning
What's happening to our history?
Whether you're a professional photographer, amateur or someone that has enjoyed photographing your own personal life over the years in a non-professional capacity, your work still matters. It matters to your future generations.
Often we'll see great historic images that are now in protected archives like the Library of Congress, Getty Museum, or perhaps in a local Museum's archive. But what if your life's work is not accepted into a library collection like this, then what do you do?
You need to take this into your own hands. You can begin by finding a company that can digitize your media cheaply and gives you back a digital mess, or you can find someone who can professionally capture your prints, negatives, slides and old movie tapes and reels and properly adds facial ID, keywords, captions and will back date your media so that it will display in chornological order.
There's nothing worse than seeing old photos show up in your camera roll with a current date. This does something to our mind as you scroll along in your library. When you see images from your childhood pop up in the wrong year, it can be rather disturbing. I know it is to me.
Why I became a Professional Photo Manager
When I began working on my own collection and learning the skills to properly organize physical photos and media, I knew I needed to have the right equipment to capture the highest quality digital image. I knew I had the skills to crop, edit, and color correct each one. I knew that organizing them chornologically and back dating them would be key. I also then realized that I knew that others would want this same service.
What to do when someone dies?
Many families are experiencing the overwhelm that happens when family members die and you're left sorting through their belongings which often include the old family photos. Then what? What to do with all of it.
Rather than just boxing them up and putting them into your storage room in the basement (hopefully somewhere that is temperatured controlled), take action and get them digitized.
Once these photos are digitized, and the originals removed from photo albums that are not acid-free and sorted into archival quality boxes, you'll breath easier knowing that that your family's legacy is safe.
When your photos are in a digital format they're easier to backup, save, and share with future generations. When you have more than one copy of something, it's safer. When you can back your files up to a cloud storage solution, it's safe from getting destroyed in your home by a natural disaster.
What to do with old computers and hard drives?
Images on old devices, computers, or hard drives can also be a source of lost images when someone passes. If you don't take the time to secure these old files, you may not realize until many years later that you've lost a lifetime of family memories.
Remember to review their photo libraries for those precious memories before wiping the computer's hard drive.
If you have difficulty in retrieving data off of old devices, find someone that can help you get to that hard drive or computer.
Phones can be harder to access once someone's passed unless you know their password on the phone. Make sure you can get access to it before they die. Ask to become their Legacy Manager for that device.
Set up a Legacy Manager/Contact
Many companies now let you assign someone you trust to be a legacy manager on your devices and accounts.
Apple Devices:
- Update to iOS 15 or later.
- Open Settings and tap your name at the top.
- Select Password & Security.
- Tap Legacy Contact and follow the prompts to add a trusted person and set a secure access code.
Google Accounts (and Android devices using Google):
- Visit Google’s Inactive Account Manager.
- Sign in, then choose trusted contacts and decide when your account should be considered inactive.
- Follow the setup steps to complete the process.
For Android, using the Google account’s Inactive Account Manager covers your legacy settings if you’re signed in with Google.
Learn more about Google Inactive Account Manager
Lastly, do not wait to get started. Every day and every year that goes by your old media and movie tapes are degrading and you may not be able to recover them as well if their quality becomes more fragile.
