Traveling Through the Past

Summary

The author is organizing and digitizing a collection of old unlabeled slides to preserve family memories and history, inspired by an article on old travel photos.

Abstract

The author has embarked on a journey to sort through a large collection of old slides accumulated over years of living in various international locations, including Manila, Jakarta, and Amman. Motivated by an article by Paul S. Marshall on old travel photos, the author aims to digitize and label the slides, discarding the moldy or redundant ones, to create a organized archive for future generations. The process involves using a Wolverine slide viewer to review each slide, with a focus on preserving significant family moments and landscapes, while also sharing these digitized memories with family and friends.

Opinions

The author values the preservation of personal and family history through photographs.
There is a sense of nostalgia and joy in rediscovering old memories, especially those involving family and friends.
The author recognizes the importance of labeling and organizing photographs for the benefit of future generations.
The process of sorting through the slides is seen as an opportunity to discard less meaningful images and focus on the most valuable ones.
The author appreciates the role of technology, such as the Wolverine slide viewer, in facilitating the digitization of old media.
The grandchildren's interest in the project indicates a cross-generational appreciation for family history and personal memories.

Going through my old slide collection

I have several old photo albums on our shelves. Each photo is labeled on the back with the location and the album is dated so my kids and grandkids should be able to reconstruct some of the past based on the albums. However, I also have hundreds of slides in boxes with no labels.

sorting old slides (photo by author)

I decided to get it organized. I bought a Wolverine slide viewer and I’m going through the slides box by box. Many were taken when we lived in Manila and Jakarta. This was back in the day when I would take a role of 36 shots and then mail the film to Australia to be developed. Then I anxiously waited for a box of 36 slides to be mailed to me.

Some slides were taken when we lived in Amman, Jordan. I would save my roles of film until we returned to the States for the summer and then would get them developed. I remember a man in a photography shop in Plattsburg, N.Y. handing me my slides and photos and stopping to ask me, “Where on earth do you live?”

I kept everything back then, both good slides and bad slides. I am now going through them and sorting them. Many I am discarding. I took a lot of scenery shots and sunset shots that I don’t think I need to keep. I am also finding that many are moldy so I’m discarding those too. However, I am finding treasures of shots of family and friends.

Many of these I am saving digitally to share. For all the slides I am saving, I individually label them and put them back into the small plastic boxes indicating a year and location, so there is some organization to the slides.

Some old photos just make me smile.

about 1994 in New York: a cup of coffee with 2 best friends (photo by Gerad Carrier)

about 1995 in Jakarta: Our kids (when in high school) and our new puppy, Chico (Photo by author)

About 1988 in Malaysia: My daughter investigating a flower (photo by author)

about 1988 in Malaysia: My daughter climbing a hill in the Cameron Highlands (photo by author)

About 1988 in Port Dickson, Malaysia (photo by author)

about 1979 in Jakarta: Inam helps my son put on a sarang (photo by author)

about 1977 on a Ski lift in Switzerland (photo by author)

about 1976 in Manila: Me with our infant son (Photo by Gerad Carrier)

I am just beginning. There are many, many more slides to go through.

The grandkids are enjoying the process and enjoy seeing their daddy and their aunt when they were young, and seeing me (their grandma) and Gerad (their grandpa) when we were young.