What to do with old travel photos
Mark Varnau of Indianapolis, Indiana, wrote (April ’16, pg. 47), “What do others do with their old trip negatives and unused pictures? Are any groups interested in having them? Or should my wife and I just grit our teeth and toss them?”
Several subscribers wrote to Mark and gave permission for ITN to share their advice. In addition to one letter sent in response to another subscriber’s related advice, the following are excerpts of what they wrote.
I’ve visited 108 independent countries and taken 40 cruises. When I return from a trip, one of the first things I do is decide which photos I want to keep and make 4"x6" prints of at Walmart.
I do some cropping and editing, and when the pictures come back, I put them in an album that has a strip above each picture where I can print a brief description. At the top of each page, I also print the location(s) of the photos on that page.
I have more than 55 albums, Pioneer 46-MP models, which accommodate 300 prints each plus refill pages. Each page holds 12 photos, six on each side, and each page has pockets; these aren’t the plastic, magnetic-type pages which crinkle and discolor.
As for the negatives, unused pictures, etc., I used to keep these, but a few months ago I got around to throwing out all of that stuff. In all the years I traveled, and I still do travel considerably, I never looked at any of it, and I knew that no one else would ever be interested in what was there. It was a relief to throw all of it away.
Who knows what interest anyone will have with those 55-plus albums after my wife and I pass on? It’s not my concern. I once was told, “The only one interested in hearing a person’s life story is the person telling it”!
For the present, the albums are an occasional reference for my wife and me as to when we traveled to a country and what we saw. And every once in a while, especially on a winter’s night, we look through an album and reminisce.
Happy discarding!
Keith D. Jackson
Parksville, BC, Canada
Kudos to nonagenarian G.F. Mueden for urging us to organize our trip photos while we’re still able to (June ’16, pg. 19).
For decades, my parents traveled the world extensively. After each trip, Dad meticulously organized his slides into presentations for local clubs, while Mom created personal scrapbooks. The slides were never viewed again after Dad passed.
A decade later, Mom transitioned into assisted living. Space was too limited for her many scrapbooks, so I condensed them into one 3-ring binder. For each trip, I included the itinerary followed by select photos. Until her passing, Mom relived her travels through that photo binder.
Because of my experience organizing my parents’ photos and memorabilia, I now use Microsoft Word to create and print, for each of my trips, a double-sided cover page that includes trip title, travel dates, countries visited and a paragraph with special highlights and personal comments, then I insert into this document a few favorite photos. On the reverse side is the trip itinerary, a map and more pictures, followed by a complete photo diary of 25 to 100 pages.
Since I merge narrative and photos in a Word document, and I use double-sided photo paper (with a matte finish, purchased at Staples), I can include more pictures on the pages than when I was working with 4"x6" prints.
These pages go into 3-ring binders, each binder covering three trips or more. Covering about 45 years of travel, these binders fit on two bookshelves. (My former album scrapbooks took up a whole linen closet!) However, if/when I need to downsize, I can condense them further by placing only the cover page from each of the trips into a single binder to spark happy travel memories.
Echoing Mr. Mueden’s advice, “Start organizing before it’s too late!”
Wanda Bahde, Summerfield FL
I faced a situation where I had accumulated close to 10,000 slides and negatives, which were filling up many drawers and shoe boxes, then a friend of mine put me on to ScanCafe (Fishers, IN; 866/234-3909, www.scancafe.com).
The way ScanCafe works is you mail them your slides, negatives and prints, and they scan them and return the images as image files. The charge is, on average, about 25 cents per image. Once you become their customer, you will receive frequent offers of discounts via email.
I have been very satisfied with the results. They routinely restore the material and bring it back to life, even if badly faded.
I would suggest sending them a trial package so you can evaluate the results and gain experience in how you want to structure future submissions.
ScanCafe sends your material to India, where the actual work is being done, so it takes quite a while to get the results back — up to about four weeks, as I recall. You can specify having it processed in the US, which is faster, but they charge more for that.
When you send the material, pack it up in batches and give each batch a title. They will return the results as computer files on the format of your choice (CD, DVD) and will name the files using those titles.*
I now have all of my old photos on my computer, along with thousands of new images taken since I switched to digital. My photo file contains over 38,000 images and takes up over 200 gigabytes. I use two one-terabyte external hard drives for backup and keep them in a safe place.
All my shoe boxes of photos are gone, and my file drawers are slowly filling up again with new junk.
Paul Rosenberger
Manhattan Beach, CA
* In addition to the CD or DVD, ScanCafe also returns the photographer’s original images, negatives and slides.
To get rid of old photos, take a deep breath, pick up the first box of negatives and unused photos… and toss! Repeat as needed until all are gone! The contemplation is far worse than the act.
“Downsizing” is something that we all face by a certain age, and it can be very freeing. Do you really NEED that box of photos and negatives? For that matter, do you really NEED 100 photo albums?
When I made my second downsizing move (the first was from a house to a condo, the second from a condo to a retirement facility, going from three bedrooms to two to one), I threw away all of the photo albums with actual photographs from 35 years of travel. That’s right; they all went into the dumpster.
I did keep a number of newer albums that I’d made with the help of online services. These are only half-inch-wide albums, in contrast to the 3- to 4-inch-wide albums from my earlier travels. All of my photo albums now fit on my one and only bookcase.
Of course, I downsized a lot more than photos. Furniture, dishes, knickknacks and clothes all were purged in my attempts to simplify my moves and my life (not to mention my children’s lives upon my demise!). Try it. Start small (maybe 20 minutes at a time?), and you, too, can unclutter your life!
Dee Poujade, Portland, OR
I had a travel agency for 25 years and took many groups on tours throughout the world. Needless to say, I took many pictures.
When I moved three years ago, I took time to go through almost all of the albums, and I kept ONLY the pictures with my husband and me in them. All pictures of other people or scenery were tossed out. My children would not know the people and places anyway.
It’s hard to let go of old photos and negatives, but your family will appreciate your work when you are gone.
Elvera Rollins. Modesto, CA
I’ve been traveling for 50 years, and I have many slides of my trips. After I showed them to a few friends, however, I put them in boxes in a closet and never pulled them out, so a few years ago I went through all my slides (thousands), threw out about two-thirds and kept just the best along with the ones that triggered the best memories. This process took me a year or more.
I then shipped my slides (arranged by trip) off to ScanCafe (www.scancafe.com) to be scanned to a CD. This was not cheap, but they sometimes have deals.
When I got my scans back, I put the photos onto my computer. Now they’re screen savers. The images drift by, and I feel like I’m forever traveling. Every so often I change the trip so I can enjoy another part of the world.
I’m so glad I did this. It was worth the investment.
Connie Diernisse, Alamo, CA
I have taken some of my old negatives and had them digitalized at ScanCafe. I last did this in November 2015. Their prices are quite reasonable.
You get your photos back on a disc. You can see the images before getting the disc and reject 20%. I have always been pleased with the quality.
You can do a great deal with the digital images. I have printed and edited some of these scans and even made some photo books.
I take some of the extra prints that I haven’t scanned and, through Photographer’s Edge (www.photographers
edge.com), make framed cards from them. I no longer have to buy any kind of greeting cards at $2.50 and up for each.
Each Photographer’s Edge card has three folds. After the 4"x6" photo is put in the adhesive area, you just fold it over and you have a greeting card. See the company’s website for all their products and prices.
I hope this helps.
Irwin Vogel, Somerset, NJ
As a traveler with too many albums and extra pictures, I understand the dilemma posed by old photos.
Through the years, I have used “the extras” as postcards. There’s no need to do anything special with a photo; just use it like a regular postcard. Friends seem to enjoy them, especially the funny ones.
When I’m ready to dispose of albums, nursing homes and/or assisted-living places seem to welcome them.
I’ve given up on making albums; my pictures are on my computer now — not as much fun.
Suzanne Saunders, Gardner, MA
I have been publishing my scanned photos for the last 20 years on a personal website. I started with prints and later, after 2003, posted digital photos. After that, I started scanning my many slides and negatives.
First, I scanned them in high definition using a Wolverine scanner. Then I made an .mp4 movie slide show of the .jpg digital images using the program Adobe Premiere (www.adobe.com). I uploaded the movie presentation to Vimeo (www.vimeo.com)* and then also embedded the Vimeo movie on the “A Life Retrospective” page of my website.
I completed all of my thousands of slides and then began scanning the original negatives of particular photos, replacing the scanned-print versions with the high-resolution scans of the negatives. After recovering the high-resolution images, I threw the negatives in the trash.
The high-res photos are of value only to the one who experienced the event. At my age, 85, I like to review my life's experiences.
By March 2016, I had gotten down to one 18-square-inch box of negatives that I had not yet digitized. I went through that, scanning some favorite shots, and finished the job in May.
My actual photo albums, organized with comments, have been given to the local historical society.
Galen Frysinger, Sheboygan, WI
* Vimeo is a video-sharing website, similar to YouTube, where users can upload movies and slide shows.
About those old photos? Save any you really want and toss the rest. Negatives? Most of them, probably nobody wants, so toss them also.
Several years ago I was in the same quandary. After much soul-searching, I dumped them all in a plastic garbage bag and put them out for pickup. At first I felt a little unsettled, but that quickly passed. I have never regretted my decision.
Any photo I wanted was already in a well-labeled album, and, quite frankly, when my husband and I pass, I imagine the family will throw them all in the dumpster.
Nancy Gatland, Wilton, NY
I had the same dilemma years ago: how to keep my wonderful trips relevant to my family? So I went through my photos, selecting the best, and had them converted to digital images on DVDs. It was easy and cost me about $800.
Afterward, I discarded all the negs and slides, just as I’ve simplified my life in downsizing my living space and consolidating my finances. I unburdened myself as well as my children. It’s a good feeling for all of us.
It is a delight to show my grandkids a digital album whenever they want or to make a presentation to a group.
And it’s fun to display pictures on my TV on the wall. In fact, one of my projects is to add voice-overs to the DVDs of pictures, relying on my trip itineraries and other papers picked up along the way to describe the photos.
It was after seeing one of these albums a couple of months ago that my 14-year-old grandson decided it was Iceland that he wanted to visit, so we’re going there the end of June, 18 years after my trip there. I can’t wait to see how it’s changed.
Bobbi Benson, Burlingame, CA
I had the same dilemma with old photographs, as it is emotionally hard to get rid of them. Here is what I did.
I kept any good photos of my husband and myself, especially if we looked young, healthy and thin, and I threw out photos of people who I couldn’t remember who they were.
I also separated out all the photos of places, including buildings, landscapes, crowd shots (not individual people) and animals, of which there were hundreds. The daughter of a friend of mine is an elementary school teacher and I gave them all to her. The children used them for art projects.
The teacher later told me that she did several lesson plans in which the kids had to use the photos in different ways.
It was hard, but I also got rid of the negatives.
I hope this is helpful. The key is to find an elementary school teacher! It’s nice to know the pictures can be used for other purposes.
Esther Perica
ITN asked the subscriber who solicited the letters above to tell us what he decided to do with his old trip photos, and he wrote the following:
I decided that, since we had the best pictures of all our trips, complete with the story about each picture, in Pioneer 300 pocket photo albums, that was sufficient for our memories, and all of the unused pictures and negatives would be of no interest to anyone else now or in the future.
I removed from each box any notebook I had kept, and if there was a map of the country that I had used, I kept that also.
Gritting my teeth, I threw the first five boxes into the trash. After that, it was easy, and I have now discarded more than 50 boxes, with another 30 to go. It’s a relief.
I thank all of the respondents for their thoughtful input, and I thank ITN for being a wonderful conduit for us travelers.
Mark Varnau