Photo Albums: the genesis of this web site
This website started out of Ian's hobby
of putting together themed photograph albums every two or three years
beginning in 1979. The first album reflected his time at
UC Berkeley, where he graduated that year,
as well as some photos from the years since leaving
school in Marlow, UK.
There weren't a lot of photos until around 1980. Over twenty-five years after
being compiled, the pages are already starting to yellow.
Rather than being organized chronologically, the albums had
pages organized by theme. The two Canada pages on the left and below here were
the "Canada" theme in this first paper photo album, memories from his stays in
Canada in 1971-2.
Ian produced photo albums in much the same format covering
1979-82 (law school), 1983-6 (New York), 1987-1990 and 1990-92 (both in
Paris). All of them include different themes, perhaps pages devoted to a
particular person or holiday or period.
We were late getting to the next album, which should have
been done in around
1996. But when we finally got to it in
2000, the
possibility was there to do it digitally. It took a little arranging: a negative
scanner made digitizing photos doable with good quality, and then
Microsoft Front Page made it easier to create a photo album on the web.
Adobe Photoshop Elements helped us format and improve the photos.
The
effect is that the selected family photographs can be shared with everyone in the family who wants to see them, with no
diminution in quality, on their own PCs. The children
refer their friends to see them on the web. Over the years that original digital
album has grown and grown, with regular updates reflecting technological
advances through broadband internet access.
But over time the themes became so numerous and interrelated
that it became difficult to explore them coherently. The format worked in a
50-page photo album on paper, but began to be cumbersome when there were 130+
pages on the web.
So in 2008, we decided to turn the
photo album into a photo journal. No doubt in a
few years it too will begin to look cumbersome and awkward to navigate.
But for right now, it looks like the answer to the maze we've created.
This album/journal on the web is a fun hobby!
Other hobbies in our family include:
swimming,
soccer,
diving,
surfing, homework, more soccer,
trains, funfairs,
more swimming,
screens,
mountain biking, cars,
stamping, more
soccer, even work.
