Our theme for Week 16 is Negatives, and I'm going to take a slightly different interpretation of this topic than I originally intended.
Many of us have a collection of old photograph negatives stored away somewhere. Sometimes they are paired with printed photographs, sometimes the photos have been given away or lost and it is just the negatives left. Others have been made into slides, for which you may no longer have any kind of viewer available.
While cleaning out the family home after my parents passed away, I found such a treasure. A shoebox full of old photographs and negatives, and another box full of photographic slides. What I did not find, however, was any means of viewing the negatives or the slides. I did have vague memories of seeing the slides projected on a wall using a slide projector as a child, but certainly no such device remained in the old house.
The boxes travelled around with me for a few years, glanced at every now and again. Then, just before Christmas, I discovered an intriguing little device that plugged into my computer that could convert slides or negatives into digital photos! I ordered it immediately and waited impatiently for it to arrive.
And it has been marvellous! For the past few months, I have been eagerly converting hundreds of those old negatives into digital photos, many of which I have absolutely no memory of seeing. Some I can identify, others are a mystery, but I have happily worked my way through those old boxes. In the process, I have unearthed many treasures.
One container of about 50 slides were from my parents' wedding. Another was baby photos of my sister and I, a third photos of the sheep station where we were born. One container was filled with images of the prize winning Merino sheep my father bred. Treasures indeed.
So have a look around for any old negatives sorted away, and investigate getting them printed or converted into digital images, either by using a similar device or visiting your local camera shop for help.
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