August 16th, 2017

my next project.  Ambitious goal. 

The plan is to go through all of the photographs, sort them by person, create computer files for each person then scan each photo into the computer.  So far, so good.  The harder part is coming up with some sort of descriptor for each photo.  Not just the name of the person but a rough guesstimate of the year and more specifically the place and occasion.

The people are easy. I know who everybody is, even in baby pictures which is very impressive. Lots of babies look similar. And in our family, they all wore the same outfits which we passed around. Can't tell by the clothes.  But I know those adorable little faces.

Some occasions are easy.  If there is a Christmas Tree in the background, I'm pretty sure I know the occasion and the time of year.  If there is snow on the ground, or autumn leaves or a full garden I can whittle the time frame a bit.  A turkey on a well set table is probably Thanksgiving and a graduation gown is a give-away.   But a non-holiday gathering?  Unless somebody is wearing a wedding dress, I'm probably guessing.

The place is can be tricky.  I recognize anywhere we used to live of course, but some of the vacation photos have me wondering, which ocean is this?  They look  fairly similar.  I find myself showing Tim a photo and asking, "Was this in California or Florida?"  He looks blankly at me and shrugs.  Palm trees, water and sand.  Could be either. 

And then there is the memory slippage.  What was the name of that place?  I know it, I do!  It's right there on the tip of my memory, it starts with an H.  Honduras?  Hawaii?  Equally possible.  Sometimes I actually do know everything about the photograph, where we were, what we were doing and where we had dinner that night.  I just cannot this second recall the name.  "It was that place, you know, the one with the waterfall.  You had the chicken dish but you picked out all the pineapple. The waiter was nice, his name was Roberto, his wife worked there too, she wore the red dress."   Yeah that kind of detail. But the actual name eludes me.

Even some of the pictures with pets in them baffle me sometimes, okay, whose cat was that?  What was it's name?  We had one cat who photo bombed nearly every picture we took. Hysterical.  I didn't realize it until I began sorting these photos.  Nearly every single picture taken in that time frame has that cat in it somewhere.  He should have his own folder.

Here is my workspace.   Everyone is assigned a large envelope. I write on the back of each picture as best as I can remember, who, what, where and when. Photo in Envelope and move on to the next one.  This is going to take some time.

Well it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble. Mostly.  And I'm enjoying the travel down Memory Lane.  Mostly. It's a good brain exercise if nothing else AND eventually this will be yet another empty bin.

Mission almost accomplished.  Just gotta sharpen my memory banks.

Is there an App for that?