…scanned from my archive. My grandmother Fanny

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…scanned from my archive. My grandmother Fanny

My grandmother Fanny was one of the sweetest and kindest people I ever knew, almost to a fault. She lived for her family and friends and would literally do anything to help or support them, but as a result I always wondered about her own happiness.

She raised my mother and her brother Jerry, and helped my grandfather Boris run his photo studio on the boardwalk, just downstairs from their ocean view apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. I of course have dozens of photos my grandfather took of her, posing almost demurely for the camera in his studio, on the boardwalk, the beach or their roof (otherwise known as tar beach).

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Creating a Legacy Collection for Yourself

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Creating a Legacy Collection for Yourself

I work with many clients, and as one might expect the collections I am seeing are getting bigger and bigger. I am currently working on two personal photo collections over 100k images and that is not uncommon.

The question then becomes, where is this going and do we really want to go there?

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Have you become the designated family photo historian?

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Have you become the designated family photo historian?

I recently became a regular contributor to the popular website Sixty and me.

Read my latest article here - Have you become the designated family photo historian?

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What do you want your photo collection to look like in ten years?

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What do you want your photo collection to look like in ten years?

I recently placed a post-it note on my computer screen that asks – What do you want your photo collection to look like in ten years?

Although it was meant mostly as a reminder to me, it's now a question I ask my clients as well when starting a new project with them.
 
In this age of massive digital accumulation, it is something worth thinking about, especially if we believe a family photo archive has value to us, not only in our lifetime, but to those we might consider passing it down to in the future.

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What makes a great family photo

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What makes a great family photo

I am always telling my clients that we all need to become the editors of our own life story, but sometimes figuring out what makes a photo worth keeping and adding to our story isn’t so easy. I’ve been a photo editor for years, but the criteria I used for professional editing and what I might consider for editing family photos isn’t necessarily the same.

What they both have in common is story telling, that’s what editing is. But while a professional edit requires a certain level of technical quality, family photos are more about emotional connections to people, places and things, the stuff memories are made of.

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…scanned from my archive. Boris Lenoff, Fire Island 1958

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…scanned from my archive. Boris Lenoff, Fire Island 1958

…scanned from my archive. Boris Lenoff, Fire Island 1958. While growing up, there were always certain photos that seemed to be present, either in frames on the wall, taped to cabinets, stuck to the fridge or in one of the several photo albums lying around. My father and my mother’s father Boris, were usually the photographers of most of the family photos, so they aren’t present in as many of the family photos as other family members. Boris was a professional photographer, so like myself, he was usually much more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.

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Before and After - A 100 year old print of my paternal Grandmother.

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Before and After - A 100 year old print of my paternal Grandmother.

I have been scanning thousands of my old family prints. It is not very realistic to retouch and restore every print that I scan, but the good ones, maybe images I will want to print in an album, I will take some time and fix them up. It is very cool to see an old yellowed, faded and damaged print look like new (almost).

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