At Home with Tech

What are you supposed to do with all your parents’ photos after they’re gone? Before trying to integrate any picture into your own digital family photo archive, here are the three most important details to consider.

My mother curated two massive family photo albums while I was growing up. These visual time machines that held the official Lester record from my formative years always lived in the back of my mom’s linen closet. In hindsight, her process was imperfect, but she kept it up, and she effectively completed it.

Now, I’m finally trying to integrate many of these pictures into my own digital family photo archive. And guess what?

It hasn’t gone exactly as planned.

After I scanned the old originals from the ‘60’s, ‘70s and ‘80s, I found they didn’t immediately fit neatly into one cohesive story, even when viewed in the organizing structure from their original photo album.

So, what’s wrong?

Old Photo Albums are Often Jigsaw Puzzles
Sure, my parents’ vacation photos have been relatively easy to track (though one bathing suit shot by a pool or beach often looks the same as others from different trips).
This happens to be a shot of my father vacationing in Hawaii. But how would you know?

Then there are others that don’t contain any identifying information beyond their relative position in their photo album.
These two friends of my mom (in the center) show up multiple times in her photos during the years before she married my dad. They remain a mystery to me, but you can tell they had a strong connection.

Many photos become a jigsaw puzzle to figure out. And I’ve delayed tackling it for far too long.

Now that both my parents are gone, I’ve lost access to their knowledge. I do know where some of the jigsaw pieces go, but I’m guessing with so many others.

It’s not like I didn’t pay any attention to some of the details in these photos across the decades, but only now have I realized how many gaps exist.

What’s Written on the Back of the Photo?
The biggest problem with archiving physical photos from the pre-digital era is identifying when they were taken. Some film-developing labs my parents used stamped the date on the back of the photos, but not usually.

So, it was up to my parents (actually, only my mom did this) to write down the date and topic either on the back of a photo, in the photo album, or on the front of the envelope the photos came in.

That’s a lot of work. My mother did an admirable job, but it was hardly complete.

The Unknowable Moments can be the Best Ones
So, I’ve been really trying to pull together all these photos and complete the ‘story.’ I’m sure you’re wondering why I just don’t follow the story that’s evident in the original photo albums. Well, that’s because beyond the typical birthday, holiday and vacation photos, the rest of them reflect moments that are often unclear to me.

And these unlabeled photos tend to display more spontaneous and authentic moments than the staged ones. So, I really want to know more about them, though I expect I never will.

This Cobbler Needs New Shoes
Along this frustrating process of being only partially able to unlock and restore the memories from these analog photos, I’ve stumbled across an unexpected and disturbing reality much closer to home.

I’ve been blogging for the past twelve years about the importance of good digital photo organization. But if you can believe this cobbler, I actually haven’t done a great job documenting my own story in photos.

There’s irony in this truth as I’ve regularly invested countless hours in digital photo organization since 2000. Yes, many thousands of photos are properly organized chronologically with their native digital time stamps and in good folder structures, but that’s only the start of any storytelling process.

Plus, there are my own pre-digital photos. Some made it into albums. Others didn’t. Some were labeled. Others weren’t. (Sensing a pattern?)

That Linen Closet Photo Collection wasn’t All I Neglected
And of course, there’s my mom’s linen closet photo library that remained hidden after she passed away back in 2006. The photos stayed in their New York City apartment for the next sixteen years. When my father died in 2022, I, finally took over all his photos from his travels as well as those linen closet albums.

When I began reviewing all of it for digital conversion, I thought I would focus on my mother and father. But I realized how many of these photos were also key to my own story (not surprising).
Here’s baby Barrett in Central Park with my mom and grandfather.

And when I turned to my existing digital photo archive that I thought I’ve meticulously maintained in Adobe Lightroom and looked back a few decades, it was only then that I saw major gaps in my own photo history from those years.

I think I always knew the missing chapters lived in that linen closet, and I had just kept kicking the can down the road.

The Importance of Tending to your Own Timeline
So, I’ve temporarily paused my broader family photo history project to fill in the gaps on my own visual timeline.

Here are the three key insights I’ve learned along the way that you should first consider before embarking on this type of photo-archiving work.

#1
Get the Time Stamp Right
The ‘when’ doesn’t tell the whole story, but without it, an old paper photo is effectively unbound in time. Sure, you can probably estimate it within a couple years based on visual cues. However, locking it into the correct year or even month will better fit it into that jigsaw puzzle. Maybe a perfectly accurate date is not so critical to that individual picture, but it could help clarify other photos.

Plus, without this important marker, you won’t be able to sort your digital versions chronologically.

So, when you digitize or scan a photo, you do really need to take that extra step (I know it’s a nuisance) and immediately modify the ‘creation’ date away from when you scanned it to your best guess on when it was actually snapped.

Taking that critical step will instantly place that photo into its correct position on your sacred timeline. (Yes, that’s a “Loki” reference.)

#2
Your Best Photos Should Independently Tell their Own Stories
Then comes the ‘what.’ The who may be obvious (hopefully), but what’s going on is usually the whole point of any photo.

Of course, you can write a caption into a photo’s metadata field to explain the image, but ideally, a great photo that can stand up against the future will speak for itself.

I’ve come to realize that pictures that can’t tell their own story simply aren’t as valuable as archival tethers to your past.

This may be common sense, but as I’ve gone through many of my own 20th century photos, I’m shocked by how many have effectively lost their archival value, because I can’t tell what’s going on.
Look at me. I’m a kid swimming somewhere in a pool. Does anyone care?

Here’s another photo from the same family trip to Puerto Rico. It’s certainly more interesting, right?

It’s all about the details in a photo. That’s what really matters. Sure, how you look as a younger person may be interesting, but that’s not truly the point of a great archival family photo.

#3
Assume a Stranger is Holding your Photo
Yes, this is similar to #2, but #2 applies to you. #3 is for everyone else!

I think the biggest mistake when building out a collection of photos that represents your family history is to think that the viewer knows what you know. Always assume that nobody will have any knowledge about you or your family. (I know that’s harsh, but that’s the real key to future-proofing your collection.)

You may intuitively understand a grouping of photos, and they may make sense to you, but the truth is nobody else will.

Who is this All for?
Which begs the question… Do you even care if your photo collection makes little sense when viewed by the future? Perhaps all you care about is enjoying your photos in the now. (I think that’s how my father experienced his own photos.)

But I’m talking about your kids… and their kids. Or maybe distant relatives… or even strangers (back to #3).

Do you want your photos to have some level of enduring impact as opposed to dissolving into an anonymous digital oblivion?

Yes, now this is all about legacy. That you were here. And you lived.
This is one of just three photos I have of my great grandfather and the oldest picture of any family relative. I’m so glad it somehow survived.

Legacy
I didn’t used to think about any of this. And now I’m beginning to. (Yes, I know this is connected to Father Time.)

And who knows if there’s really any way to preserve your digital photos into the future any better than a precious photo album in the back of a mother’s linen closet that’s ‘forgotten’ for decades.

But I’m determined to complete my multi-generational family photo archiving work started by my mother. (I’m just currently focusing on the ‘me’ part.)
Here’s a cool photo of me visiting the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles during college.

It’s Not too Late
For those of you who will eventually face a similar archiving project, I can offer this piece of advice:

Don’t wait to get started. It’s much easier if you truly tackle this immense task years earlier, finish it and then simply add to your family photo collection throughout the journey of your life.

Doesn’t that sound so much less stressful?

Good luck.