Photos to Take/Scrap

Woke up this morning thinking of photos I like to find (from others or that I didn't remember that I had) to include in my albums. In my family, at least, we tended to take photos on "occasions" (holidays, vacations, family gatherings, etc) unless they were of the cat. But the photos that mean the most to me to find are the ones of folks doing everyday things: mom in the kitchen baking, dad working in his woodworking shop, mom feeding the cat, grandma in the kitchen feeding one of her grandchildren (since I don't have any of her doing that with her own 9 children).

So, just a thought for those of you who like to take pictures as well as when you're choosing photos to scrap . . . think of what folks looking at your albums decades in the future would like to see in them.

For me, I wish my family had more pics of people at their jobs, doing the things I remember them doing (mom making homemade bread, which she did every week when I was growing up; grandma embroidering, since we have enough pillowcases & table covers to start a small store, & that's what I remember her doing; my other grandmother raising 9 children (& not just the posed pics in the yard); etc.

I'm the 4th in my family to have (in my case, attempt to play) the family violin. I was very excited a couple of years ago to find an old photo of my uncle playing (tho, unfortunately, not that particular violin). I'm thankful to my folks, who picked the violin up (from my uncle) to bring to me 7 years ago, for taking pictures of Bill posing with the violin, including playing it. I would dearly love to find photos of my great aunt & her father (my great grandfather) playing it, but am afraid either no one thought to take those photos or they've been lost thru the years. I've never seen any.

Other things to consider are ones that show people interacting with "everyday things" that change with the times. Recently I was looking thru someone else's photos & came across one I wished I had for my family: it was of their grandfather or great-uncle, sitting reading the newspaper with the radio on in the background . . . back in the 1930s. When I was growing up, phones came in either beige or black & were attached to the wall, TVs were b/w & had "rabbit ears" on the top, bicycles had one speed, etc; all that was "normal" for us then, but seems so "quaint" now (& will so even more as the decades pass). So, take a second look at the normal activities of you & your family today, & think what might make an interesting photo for future generations.

Just a few rambling thoughts for a Saturday morning.

Alicia

Reply to
AMc in CA
Loading thread data ...

Thank you Alicia :) You had me timewarping back to my childhood years now. We also grew up with the "bunny ears", cream dial-up telephones and remember those green or amber screened computers! Not to mention those HUGE Betamax VCR's! And we thought we were on the cutting edge!

My folks bought a Volkswagen beatle out of the box the year I was born -

1971. My sister became the proud owner in her student years. She had the "old lady" overhalled a few years ago and she's still going strong!

I can't believe all the changes I've seen in 20 years time. Imagine what the next 20 holds....

Reply to
JK

Those are great photos and ideas for photos. I like to take pictures of people doing normal things too.

Teresa in MD

Reply to
Tazmadazz

Very good points Alicia! I'm terrible about not taking pics unless it's special occasions...b-day, holidays, etc. Seeing Kenda's LO of her son stuck behind the bed and your post got me to realize that I NEVER take pics of everyday things. (Bad me!) I have several pics of the kiddos doing cute things, playing, silly faces, etc, but they're all at least a year old probably. I gotta get better organized!

Reply to
Deb in AR

Great ideas:>) Tks

Reply to
Trish

Wonderful thoughts Alicia! I much prefer candid shots to posed ones myself. Unfortunetly I think w/ everything going digital that those kind of shots will be less and less. It's so easy to take hundreds of pics and then only keep maybe 50. I have pics that quite honestly if they had been taken digitaly I probably would've deleted. Thankfully though I have an "old fashioned" camera and I'm just stuck w/ what I take. I know someday I'll be glad for it when I'm thumbing through the ones that didn't get scrapped. I don't throw any away.

Katrina in KS

Reply to
Katrina

I think this is a great topic Alicia! I always loved taking candid shots, but my digital has such a time delay that if I do that I always get the back of heads etc. I'm sure that there must be a digital camera out there that would take pictures as fast as my old 35mm, but I don't know what it is and I probably couldn't afford it.

Reply to
M-C

Reply to
Jacqui

Alicia, I think you stirred up some creative juices here. I remember my Dad standing proudly in front of his model T Ford with his foot propped up on the running board (!) grinning proudly as a lot of his friends were looking at his prized possession. The clothes were early thirties and the color of the pictures were sepia. One of my favorites of my Mom is her in a flapper dress with a cloche hat pulled down over her " shingle-bobbed" hair do. She was about 20 years old and you could see she was strutting her stuff! LOL They seemed to have taken everyday pictures like that and always included enough background so you could see the way they really were. They loved to take pictures of kids playing ,dirty and scruffy but always a big grin on their face. I laugh when I see mine, I always had one pigtail hanging undone and scruffy shoes. Generally, I was sitting in mud,sand,dirt making mud pies or building sand castles. My brother and I looked like we came right out of "Our Gang".

Hugs, Sabrina in Kentucky

a good friend is a life long treasure

Reply to
Sabrina

Oh the image of you Sabrina, sitting in mud and making mud pies. hehehehehhehehe I too have such fond memories. God, if I only still liked to eat dirt, think of the money I'd save. Not nutricious I suppose but I do remember it being quite fulfilling.

Reply to
Jessie

Thanks Alicia! Those are great ideas!

My mom owns a photo lab, so I've always taken a lot of pics (free developing - I mean really!!! Although, til recently it's only been Black and White, but now they've got color, and I'm gonna learn how to process my own photos! sorry, today was the first time in a long time I've been at the lab - so the excitment is fresh!)

Anyway - since I've started scrapbooking, what I take pics of has really changed. I used to really focus on landscapes, interesting patterns, etc. Not a lot of people unless it was a special occassion.

Since I've become a Flass - I find myself almost constantly seeing everyday things as things to scrap....Now I grab a camara for things that just make me laugh, or that I just want to remember.

I do realize now how important it is to record the everyday things that we might not otherwise remember.

Thanks for bringing up that topic!

Jessica in Seattle, WA

Reply to
Jessica F

LOL I think we played for hours,sculpting whole meals of mud. I remember one large mud 'turkey' we made that looked real enough that the adults recognised what it was!

Hugs, Sabrina in Kentucky

a good friend is a life long treasure

Reply to
Sabrina

Now wouldn't that make an interesting addition to a Thanksgiving layout. hehehehehe

Reply to
Jessie

You're welcome. And what do you mean, "remember" the green screen computers. There's one sitting in the next room! (I keep meaning to wipe the memory before I take it somewhere that recycles computers but, hey, if I hold onto it long enough, maybe some museum will want it for an antique. )

My first car (yes, I have pictures ) was a 1968 Dodge Dart. That thing was built like a tank! They made'em (bumper & all) out of steel in those days. I still see them on the road.

Hey, there's a fun project for those of you with kids. Do (& scrap, of course ) a project having them predict what will be different in the world 20 years from now. Put it away & pull it out in 20 years so you can see who was right, who was close & who was way off the mark.

Alicia

- - - - - -

To be different is not necessarily to be ugly; to have a different idea is not necessarily to be wrong. The worst possible thing is for all of us to begin to look and act and think alike. -- Gene Roddenberry

Reply to
AMc in CA

After telling me when I was 14 or 15 that they wouldn't let me drive until I was 18 (guess how well that went over! ), my folks paid for private behind-the-wheel lessons when I was approaching 16. They were in a little powder blue VW bug. My instructor's name was Keith. He had fun (& I can remember being startled) when a semi had pulled up behind us & he casually said, "look in the rearview mirror". All I could see was the grill of that truck, nothing more, it was so big & so close. LOL

Alicia

- - - - - -

To be different is not necessarily to be ugly; to have a different idea is not necessarily to be wrong. The worst possible thing is for all of us to begin to look and act and think alike. -- Gene Roddenberry

Reply to
AMc in CA

Thanks! (And thanks to everyone else who liked my idea. Didn't want y'all to log on this morning to 14 thanks/your welcome posts from me in one thread ).

myself.

Posed ones do have their place. Like at family reunions when you're trying to make sure you get to see all the faces in each family group. Or when your kid is heading off to the prom with his/her date, etc. Just not every pic (at least if you're trying to capture & preserve spontaneity & a feel for what the persons & situations in the pics were really like.

Good point. When I'm using my digital it's hit & miss whether (a) it'll take the picture when I want it to (or it's ready -- can't take them quickly back to back since I do all mine at the highest resolution) or (b) it'll be in focus & not grainy (despite me focusing first & setting it to the highest resolution).

and then only keep

didn't get

Another good point. With traditional photos I do throw away the really out of focus ones, but do tend to keep "marginal" shots that I'd immediately delete from my digital.

Alicia

Reply to
AMc in CA

What a great pic!

pulled down over her " shingle-bobbed" hair do. She was about 20 >years old and you could see she was strutting her stuff! LOL

And probably not thinking about what a neat photo it would be for generations to come to look at.

Lucky you! My family (dad's side, for whom we have more pictures) tended to take them all in the yard. I also have shots of the exterior of the house, so instead of getting to find nifty new things in the background, it's more of a "decide which part of the yard this is in" thing. His family was also really big on "stairstep" pictures. No, not sitting on the stairs, tho there were some of those. There were 9 kids in his family (& unfortunately, we only have 1 photo of all 9) & lots of cousins, so they liked to line them all up from shortest to tallest.

A couple of years ago (after mom got too sick to be able to help ID photos or to care about them), dad found a box of her old photos. In it was one that means a lot to me. It's of my grandma & in the background of the photo there are a number of family heirlooms that I have in my possession today. I love photos like that!

LOL

One of my favorite pics of my mom (& I bet my mom & grandmother *hated* it) was taken on a pony that someone brought around the neighborhood, offering to take posed pictures. Mom loved horses, but based on her expression in the photo, she was certainly not in the mood that day to pose on this pony. Neither was her brother (2 years older) who sat behind her on the pony. Both had such sullen expressions on their faces! But the part that makes it so hilarious is that the pony had the same expression! Not what grandma had in mind, I'm sure, when she parted with some of their hard-earned money (grandpa was still alive at that point) to pay to have a photo taken.

Alicia

Reply to
AMc in CA

Jacqui posted:

It's a long shot, Jacqui, but try familyoldphotos.com. And if you don't find anything the first time, check back every few months. I've found pictures of a few of my ancestors (one is even a copy of the same pic we have) & recently found one of a great uncle that I knew.

{{{Jacqui}}} I can relate! My mom's mom was very close-mouthed about her life, too. She was a foster kid, so probably didn't know as much of her family's history as some folks, but wouldn't even talk much about her own life experiences (& she lived with us, so had she been talkative, I had ample time to hear stories). Mom was much the same way. As I mentioned in another post, we didn't find most of her family photos until after she was too ill to care (she was living in an assisted living facility by that time). She knew how interested I was in family history & I'd already started making albums of dad's side of the family. I would've loved to have gone thru her box of photos with her, IDing them & getting the stories behind them. Unfortunately, dad & I had to guess at them as to who/what/when/where. :-(

Did your grandmother have siblings? If so, could you ask them or their children? Unfortunately, that's not on option for me on the side of the family mentioned above, but I had an older (my dad's age) cousin find me about 2 years ago & it's been great getting the family stories from her point of view.

And, if familyoldphotos.com doesn't work, try searching on the web for your grandmother & other relatives by name. You might be surprised to find someone has their genealogy up. About a year ago, much to my surprise, I found my grandmother's genealogy (one line, speculation at that point, but more than I'd had to go on before) up on the web going back to the 1500s in Massachusetts! Fortunately, I copied it. Unfortunately, the gal who posted it has taken it down, so I can't contact her to see if she's had any luck verifying any of it.

Good luck! And keep trying.

Alicia

- - - - - -

To be different is not necessarily to be ugly; to have a different idea is not necessarily to be wrong. The worst possible thing is for all of us to begin to look and act and think alike. -- Gene Roddenberry

Reply to
AMc in CA

InspirePoint website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.