Photographs and Memories

Photographs and memories

"Remember when we used to say that our

photographs are the real ghosts...

seen.. observable...

the soul of a person captured forever.

Beyond corporal

After all the mourning has gone

And all the graves go untended"

This seemed an appropriate poem to place in a blog about photos. I am spending a significant amount of time trying to sort family and heirloom photos. Some have been stored in albums, some in cardboard boxes.

There are countless web pages, books and advice on storing photos, with countless tips. (I've yet to try removing photos from a magnetic page album with dental floss, but I am sure it will work). But in culling and sorting photos how do you determine which to keep?

My rationale maybe something like this

Can the subject, location or person be identified?

Will investigation help identify subject, location or person?

Is it a good photograph ?

If contents cannot be determined, does the photo tell a story in itself?

If it is something I do not wish to keep, will it be of interest to local history groups? eg street scenes or local people from times gone by?

I think once I have sorted into groups, probably family or individual files I can then try to sort into a chronological order. I read another blog which suggested creating a spreadsheet index of photos, indexing name or subject, photo number, and any details relevant. Then keeping the index with the photos so they are meaningful to a future generation.

Life is not always a picnic. A tired Elsie May with toddler Tim and baby Megan (myself).