Analog memories

 March has drawn to a close and it's been a rocky road, weather-wise! We've had everything from sunny, spring weather, to snow, to thunder storms and temperatures between 28° and 72°F. Slowly, however, Spring is coming! I am looking forward to taking my camera for a walk in the woods to photograph the spring ephemerals.

Spring is not a long season in Wisconsin. Growing up in England, I loved the spring which started in late February with snowdrops and crocus blooming. My mother's birthday was March 11th, so, while she was alive, I often travelled to the UK in March. It was always a joy to leave the snow behind in Wisconsin and get a jump on Spring. In 1990, Mum turned 70. She was not at all thrilled to reach this advanced age (which coincidentally is my age now). To get her over the hump of such a significant birthday, my sister and her girls decided to throw her a surprise party. We enthusiastically signed on and arranged to fly over and be part of the surprise. Rick and I took the two children out of school and flew to London a couple of days before her birthday and stayed with my sister. On the morning of Mum's birthday, we surprised her at her home. This was planned so that she would be over the excitement of seeing us when we gathered in the afternoon, for a surprise party at my sister's home.  Of course she loved the surprises and being the center of attention!  In the end, she decided that being 70 was not such a bad thing after all!

1990 was, of course, before the digital age. I have a few pictures of our trip but not nearly the quantity I would have now. Scanning the pictures is time consuming but I was able to find the picture above in just a few minutes on my hard drive. Scanning your analog photos enables you to store them but also makes it easier to find and share them. I have several huge photo albums on the book case which are full of vacation photos. At some point, I will have to go through them and digitize them, because they are all changing color due to the cheap vinyl albums. Acid Free was not a thing when we took these photos! Have you ever noticed that old color photos turn pink? That is because photos are made up of Cyan, Yellow and Magenta.  Cyan and yellow colors fade faster than Magenta, so magenta is what remains. Depending on how far gone they are, it's quite hard to recolor magenta-shifted photos convincingly. AI helps, but I've noticed that it has trouble with skin tones and makes everyone look like they are wearing lipstick, including the men! 

Digitizing all the albums is a task I have been putting off for some time. Once I get the pictures I want to keep in digital form, I will store them in my Forever account. I recently added an album of digital photos from my visits to family from 2005 to 2020. Now for the prints. My photo archive is a work in progress and one which will keep me busy for a long time to come!