Family Photo Scanning Project

Screenshot of the folder full of scanned pictures.

The last time I came to visit my Mom, in December 2007, I began the project of scanning the family photos into my laptop which was to be the first step in creating a digital album that could be distributed among the family.

I didn't get far on the project then and had planned to come back in February or March to recommence with it. But that didn't happen. So I was planning to work on it on the pre-Xmas visit I had been planning before Mom broke her hip just before Thanksgiving.

The Family Photo Scanning Project has been on my mind ever since I got here just after Christmas but there has been too many impediments to getting started on it. Other than the exigencies of my mother's care, the running of the household and my the fallout of my run-in with the dishwasher, the biggest impediment was that the boxes of pictures had been stowed in a closet and a mattress was setting on its side in front of it. Then the table in the office I had used last time was no longer in there so there was nowhere for me to set up my laptop close enough to the scanner/printer or work with the pictures to sort and prepare them for scanning. Besides which, working in the office in the day time would interfere with my nephew's school work with my sister's sleep at night as she sleeps under the creaky floor.

It's been a couple weeks since I posted about setting up that printer in my Mom's room where my workstation has been since my second day here. But that mattress still blocked that closet in the office until today.

There is one last impediment but we have a plan to rectify it. That is the bright light from the window in here on sunny days between 9AM and 2PM that makes it hard for me to see anything but the window. The very hours when my Mom is not sleeping and my services are not needed elsewhere. The window is right above the printer and right behind my laptop's screen. We have attempted to block the light with various items that have only done a partial job of it. But my sister is going to put a black sheet over the entire window.

Scanning the pictures into the computer is just the first step. As shown below, I position as many pictures as will fit onto a cardboard that mostly fills the scanner bed. Later I have to prepare individual pictures by cropping, rotating, resizing, etc. Then naming and saving by who, when, where etc. But those things can be done after I return to Phoenix, OR. The focus while I'm here is to scan them in as fast as I can.

There is nearly a century between the earliest and latest photos on this board. In the top right corner is my Dad with his Granddaughter about six weeks before his death in 2005. The bottom left is his mother before her marriage and the bottom left is both of his parents early in their marriage before there were children. So, well over a decade before he was born.

I have no clue who the three ladies in vintage hats are above. The baby on the pony is my Dad. And the line of stair-step boys is my Dad (youngest) and his brothers. The same boys, all grown with grown kids of their own are pictured on the bottom left of the board below. Top left is the whole family. Top right is Dad and his parents just before he joined the Navy in 1950 something. Bottom right is Dad's Dad's Mom holding me.

Above are four picture of me and my brother and sister spread over most of a decade. Below you see four pictures of me age 12, 14, 16 and nearly 17.

All of these pictures were scanned in December 07. I'm eager to recommence the project.