My Father took lots of photographs of the family growing up and all our family holidays were well documented.
He had a good camera and always used slide film so to see the images we would have to get the projector out and project the photos onto the wall.
We did not have photographs in frames on the shelf or wall or in albums from my childhood to look at.
My brother in law is a computer boffin and he spent hours scanning the slides and saving them digitally and made my Mum a book from the best ones which span about 30 years.
I wish we had thought of doing this earlier as many of the slides have faded.
One of my lockdown projects has been to print some of these old family photos and start an album to show my Grandchildren.
I shall add to this some of the photos from my phone and my Daughters’ phones too.
I have recently bought a negative scanner and am scanning negatives I have taken of my children over the years.
I also have a box of very old photographs, many in sepia, many are older than my parents. I am very lucky to have a family tree to go with these photographs which all have an approximate date and people are named on the back. My Mum had the foresight to find out about the photos from my Grandmother and Great Aunts while they were still alive.
Some of these photographs will be scanned and repaired where necessary, then printed and added to the album.
My favourite photos will also be printed to add to multi frames and the rest will be kept in a photo box for the children to look through.
The digital files will be saved on to at least 2 external hard drives and the cloud and the photographs will be carefully looked after as in 30 or 40 years time I know they will still be accessible but will the digital files?
There are lots of online companies that offer deals on prints www.photobox.co.uk or www.snapfish.co.uk and they both do photobooks and lots of gifts too.
Why not use a small local business www.myphoto.co.uk either online or from their shop at 21 Cornwall Street, Plymouth
There are lots of places you can get photo albums, some with slip in pages for one size of photo or self adhesive pages for a mix of different sizes.
For those who are more creative a scrapbook style album may be the way to go, you can add background papers, stickers, text and tickets or programmes from special days out.
If you have old photographs that need some repair I may be able to help.
Do not let your favourite photos sit forgotten on your phone or computer.
Please print your photos so your children and grandchildren will be able to cherish them.