A pile of old negs...
There is some old stuff here. I found some negatives I took in my teens and early twenties. In order to preserve them in digital form for my Grandchildren I re-photographed as advised by Gavin Hoey.
I believe it to be important to safeguard whatever heritage we have the power to preserve. Negatives and paper prints are fragile and are easily lost or destroyed. It is my intention to re-photograph as many negatives and old family paper prints as I can. For my Grandchildren they will show images of their family for up to four generations. I am aware that even digitising these images the technology behind it moves at such a pace that today's systems could be irretievable in a very few years.
There is a picture of the rig I made to shoot the negs and some of the 50+ years old images.
I have preserved a certain anonimity by just revealing their first names. After forty or fifty plus years they will certainly have changed and in the case of one I know did not even recognise a close relative!
The homemade rig of bits of wood, elastic bands and a neg holder. The Canon 60D was used for its articulated screen. The flash at the rear has a radio trigger. The spotlight at the rear illuminated the neg to align the change and for focus.
I do not have a Macro lens so I bought a set of Close-up lenses which work very well.
My Dad took this picture on his Kodak 120 of my Mum, my brother and me picnicing. About 1946. I still have the camera.
