printed over a week by pharmacies and returned in packs of 24 or 36 along with the film negatives – then kept in a box . The solution – I took all my negatives to a local Doha photographic studio and they scanned all my negatives onto DVD . For those photos I didn ’ t have negatives for like old-school photos or photos inherited from relatives – I scanned them at the highest resolution and added them to my cloud folder . While I haven ’ t yet thrown out , or passed on , the physical envelopes of printed photos – the time will come and I can be assured that if my boat sinks moving my life ’ s possessions to my next expat destination at least my photos are safely stored in a virtual cloud !
5Ready , steady , action
During my most recent declutter fest I came upon a drawer filled with old ,
unlabelled videos and Betamax tapes , this was another situation where I almost felt defeated . But help was no further than a Google search away in the form of another professional photography store that blended old technology to retrieve my celluloid memories with modern technology and convert everything to DVD . Specialist photographic studios are familiar with multiple types of video tapes , storage disks and cassette tapes so take expert advice on retrieving lost data from these mediums . Again , a little investment is involved but peace of mind is priceless .
Paperwork – my bête
6 noire
I love paper – I always have and I suspect I always will - but enough was enough when I found a stash of used , faded 1986 bus tickets to unmemorable destinations . Utilising my project management skills I set about categorising all my paper junk and started to scan .
Scanning , and the art of digital archiving , is an amazing guilt-free method of quickly digitising paper memories by creating an exact copy of the item that can be shared easily and stored in multiple locations and the original discarded - well maybe . It ’ s highly addictive !
Luckily we have a scanner that can accommodate several pages at a time – particularly useful for those pages of recipes torn from magazines over two decades
Top tips for photographing children ’ s art
• Select an area with lots of natural light , not direct sun but soft lighting .
• Choose a sheet of white foam board , a white sheet or a simple wooden floor to make a plain background .
• Place the artwork on the foam board and stand right above it – taking the shot straight down .
• Get your children to help by taking their artwork to the ‘ photography studio ’ and get them to share them with family and friends .
• Take some test shots . If you are using an automatic camera , make sure the flash is off ; natural light should be enough .
• Keep shooting using the same position until you have finished ! or even old bank and utility statements . I won ’ t sugar-coat it - it took some time to scan 30 years of paper memorabilia but once scanned I shredded the originals and yes , saved everything to Dropbox !
7
Today
’ s artwork is tomorrows archive !
As Mother ’ s Day approaches our children will lovingly pass us beautiful hand-made works of art made at school or nursery celebrating this wonderful day of the year . Nothing evokes more memories of a time and place than children ’ s artworks . While my scanner has undoubtedly been my saviour in my battle against paper , my only real struggle was with children ’ s artwork . How do you scan macaroni embedded calendars ? The answer is you don ’ t … you photograph them . This technique also works well for oversized paperwork , pages from scrap books and items too large for a scanner .
8Turning digital archives into new treasures
One of the most exciting things about digital archiving is the opportunities it creates to develop new treasures from old memories . Online entrepreneurs have recognised this trend and you can now use children ’ s artwork to create e-books , 3D soft characters , keychain , poster , pillow or quilts . New memories in the making .
Each family has their own set of precious documents but whether it ’ s an inky footprint of your baby at six hours old or a grocery list written by your great-grandmother , it ’ s worth considering now how you can preserve and pass on these memories to the next generation . Technology is there to help more than ever so although it ’ s still early in the year , start considering if you might add going paperless to your next New Year resolutions
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