Thirty-six boxes of slides

A few days ago, I was asked to supply a few old family photos for a school project. I found that the photos were actually on 35mm slides and that I hadn't looked at those slides for maybe ten years. I have about 36 boxes of the slides, each box holding about 100 slides. I want to digitize quite a few of them for my own use and actually to have them available when I want to look at them. They are historical documents in a sense and help me remember where I've been and how I came to be this senior tennis playing retired guy. I went to Best Buy and asked the camera guy what to use for this project and they recommended an ION scanner for slides and 35mm negatives. It comes with an SD memory card and also a USB connection to a computer, so I bought one.

I've been scanning slides today, because the weather is kind of iffy and I'm done with my morning tennis match. These are from the middle 1970's, a time I well remember, but a few years before the birth of Unky Herb and the Prairie Princess. I scanned about twenty slides onto the SD memory card and transferred them to my Apple laptop. I also sent a few to my niece, Nicole, who was the requester of the original photos. Thanks, Nicole, for the inspiration.

This is the Boyd family from 1976, I think in Fort Wayne, Indiana - John, Sylvi, Johnny and Nancy. All have changed in the 34 years since the photo, but the slide is still in good shape. Photos are a kind of cheap time machine.

And Santini from the same trip - 1976. I didn't remember the photo, but I remember the person and a bit about the trip. I think it was Thanksgiving.

This is a slightly older photo. The date on the slide said October, 1973. Gino was coaching a kid's football team and I was trying to help out. I took some photos and I think I may have a super 8 mm film from the time, probably somewhere in my basement.

The scanner did a passable job with the scan, but it was necessary to tweak the images, using some of the features of Apple's iPhoto software. I had to lighten the exposure and mess with the color a bit, but I'm reasonably satisfied with the results.

The morning tennis at Wooddale did not go my way today. Bob and I lost two sets to Jerry and Pat, 6-7, 5-7. It was pretty good tennis and even, but I was a little off my game and a little fatigued from tennis four of the last five days. Pat and Jerry took it to us. And what they say is true. You cannot win them all.