The day after the devastating tornadoes that tore through much of the South last month, I was watching the news and my heart broke for a lady who was being interviewed. She stood in what was once her home but was now just a pile of rubble. She said she had lost everything. Then she mentioned she didn't even have a picture left. How sad that all of her pictures and things she loved had simply been scattered in the wind.
In the May 23 issue of "People" magazine, I read the incredible story of Patty Bullion who has been reuniting families with photos that disappeared the night of the tornadoes. She started a Facebook page, "Pictures and documents found after the April 27, 2011 Tornadoes," where she and others have scanned in photos they found in hopes someone will see and claim them. At the time of the article, 3,700 photos had been posted and 700 had been reunited with their owners. You can read more about Patty and what she's doing here. Be sure to check out her blog for some amazing stories about pictures being reunited with their owners. Also, Patty is asking for donations of new photo albums and scrapbooks to distribute to families in the South. If you would like to donate, you can send them to her at: Patty Bullion, 12108 Little Coffman Road, Lester, Alabama 35647.
I think one of the greatest things about digital photography is that unless you delete a picture, it can basically last forever. Whereas before, if you lost the negative there wasn't much you could do to recreate a photo. I can hardly stand the thought of losing everything as that lady had, but I do have a bit of comofort knowing that a huge portion of my photos are digital and saved in some capacity or another.
I'm not going into detail about my how I back up clients' photos (just rest assured they are backed up!), but I do reommend to anyone not to keep all of your files on your computer's hard drive. Every couple of months, I put my personal pictures on CDs and also either upload them to a gallery on my website or to Snapfish. That way I know I can always download the original file if I need to or have it printed again.
To everyone who has pictures printed and puts them in a photo album, I encourage you to please write on the back the names or places in the photo and date. With Facebook and other social networking sites, if someone did find a photo with a name on the back, it would be much easier to possibly trace to its rightful owner.
One thing I've started doing in the last few years is doing one photo book for the entire year for our family. That way all of my favorite photos from the year are in one book. Since I upload all of my personal photos to Snapfish anyway, it's super easy to make the book each year. If something ever did happen to it, I could easily reorder a copy. You can view more about photobooks here.
Earlier this year, my aunt asked if I would put together a photobook for her. Her husband had passed away in 2009 and she really wanted a book that had her favorite photos in it. None of her pictures were digital. I could've scanned them all myself, but there were a lot of pictures, and I knew it would take a long time. That's when I discovered the Scan Cafe. I just had to organize the photos, send them via UPS, and they did the rest. I seriously couldn't believe how easy it was. Then all of the photos were uploaded to my account at Snapfish and were also put on a CD, which was mailed back to me along with the orginal pictures. I have to say the quality of the new digital images was excellent. I highly recommend this service so you'll have digital images of photos you never want to lose.
I can't do a blog post without a picture. This is a picture of Eric's great uncle, Sam, who died in WWII. A couple years ago, Eric scanned several old family photos so we would always have copies of them. It seemed only fitting to post this since it's also Memorial Day weekend.
