Keeping Memories Alive

If you were born after 1990, you may want to read this first. If you were born before that date, read on…

My Dad chronicled the early days (roughly 1968-1974) of our family in film, quite a few of which were processed into slides rather than prints. Those 14 slide carousels have always been stored in a box the basement, and have traveled with him through something like 12 different moves. I’m overjoyed that they survived!

Since my paternal grandmother died 3 years ago, and we spent time going through her many many photographs, Dad and I have talked about reviewing those images together. Last Christmas season, we finally set up his projector and looked at most of the reels.

That projector was old and cantankerous. The primary belt was probably all dried out and stretched and oftentimes the slides would get jammed. But we spent 3-4 hours looking at pieces of our past, and I loved it.

I promised to get some of our favorites converted into digital images so that they would not be lost. But I’m a bit of a procrastinator. It took the Great Purge to finally motivate me into action.

Quite a few retailers seem to offer a slide-to-DVD option now. I went with CostCo.

The ordering process was pretty painless, and the rate seemed more than fair. I think I paid roughly $80 for 180 slides, including $20 for rush shipping. (The website says to allow 3 weeks for standard processing. Since our move date is fluid, I wanted to be sure I had the slides and DVDs in hand asap. See, procrastination only cost me $20! Heh.)

Yes, you do receive your original media back. Note that this service does not cover retouching or color correction, but those services are also offered at a great rate. The package includes an online option to view the photos but I have not activated it yet. I’d rather select my favorites and share those with friends and family than the entire 180 slides, some of which are very faded or double-exposed.

Click the thumbnails below if you’d like to see some of the gems we discovered.

(And yes, I know I was a cute baby. Too bad that only lasted a few years… Hah!) Aren’t my folks adorable?

 

If you have photographs, slides, film reels, VHS tapes, or other media that you’d like digitized, don’t procrastinate like I did. Dig them out and convert them before they degrade.